


The Invisible Land

by imsfire



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Celtic twilight AU, Central American mythology & folklore, Cornish setting, F/M, Human K-2SO (Star Wars), Jyn barges in and causes trouble, Magic, Rebelcaptain Big Bang 2020, Rescue, blacksmith Kay, determined Jyn, foundling characters, loyal friends Bodhi Chirrut and Baze, much mucking about with canon, mystery backstory, pinching ideas from WB Yeats, shapeshifter characters, spy and negotiator Cassian, the King of Elfland is a pissy bitch
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:40:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 30,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28194102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imsfire/pseuds/imsfire
Summary: When Cassian Andor is sent with a secret message to the hidden realm of Elfland, the only way for him to get there is to dance with the elves and eat their food; a magic that will bind him forever to the service of their king.The Elvenking sees wheels within wheels, and has plans for Cassian.Jyn, Kay and their friends set out to rescue him from the Invisible Land.Artwork (and huge help with my "how-the-f*ck-do-I-do-html?" problems!!) from the wonderful @dasakuryo
Relationships: Cassian Andor & Jyn Erso & Chirrut Îmwe & K-2SO & Baze Malbus & Bodhi Rook, Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso
Comments: 84
Kudos: 32





	1. Chapter 1

Jyn Erso came up from the river shore at Golant, riding bareback through the woods, driving the young horses before her. It was late in the day, the light running into her eyes, golden and slant through the woodland, and at her back the calls of wild duck and moorhen, and a little mist rising on the silver waters of the Fowey River.

High summer hung around her as she rode; the time when the sky is flawless, all stillness and sapphire, when the hot air holds close to the earth and the sun strikes your back like a strong man’s hand in friendship. Crops were ripening on every side; the Cornish fields grew more golden, the orchards sweeter by the day, with midsummer’s night now past and the first fruits waiting to be gathered. Lughnasa and harvest-tide were soon to come, and after them the equinox, the autumn rains, and then the nights would draw in once more. But for now, all around her were the colours and the long depth of summer, and heat, and the heather and wild grasses bleaching. 

She followed the old trackway upwards, through the woodland to the ridge where the roads crossed, by the old fort at Castle Dore. 

On these long evenings the gates of the Duke’s summer homestead in Tywardreath were held open till the evening star rose. No need for haste; she’d kept a good pace today, riding with her new-broken mares and foals down from the moors to Lostwithiel and on along the river valley. There’d be time and to spare to see her friends among Duke Bail’s household. One friend in particular. Though she wasn’t going to tempt the fates by so much as thinking his name. Time enough to say his name and see his face, his dear quiet face so precious to her heart, when she reached her destination and the gates were made fast behind her.

But for now, in fairy-time, in the golden dusk when the visible and invisible worlds were blurred at the edges, best to think of nothing and no-one but the immediate. The wise ones who’d raised her, kindly and far-travelled, the Old Ones who knew all hearts, had made sure the orphan child they found on the high moors knew what was safe, what was wise, in dealing with magic; when she could smile and dream free, and when it was better to keep her head down and her thoughts empty.

Best to ride on fast, tonight, and get her journey done, safely and soon.

She laid a hand for a moment on the front of her shirt, where the pierced stone hung, her one treasure from the past, the clear quartz warmed by her skin. Then touched her heels to Stormy’s flanks. 

The stallion quickened to a trot. They came out of the last edge of the woods as the steep slope levelled off. The tumbling evening sunlight danced in the dust her herd raised. It was a shining veil over the green of the land, so beautiful her heart seemed to catch in her throat at the sight. The evening was golden, there were gilded rainbows in her lashes, the very light seemed to sing.

Or – no, there _was_ singing. It wasn’t just the joy in her that seemed to lift the air like that. It was real music. A faint bright sound coming up and along the coombe ahead of her, from the place where the land softened and then rose into a low ridge, running up to the crossroads. 

Jyn blinked into the warm light. Time seemed to be holding itself very still, only the melody moving onwards while all else held its breath; onwards and outwards, coming and fading seductively at the borders of hearing. It called her and then vanished; lulled and then awoke her again. 

The fields were starred with daisies and harebells, set like gems in a network of stone hedges golden with bracken. She remembered primroses in those same hedges, and Cassian gathering a posy of them for her. Bashful and natural, he who was so often polished and guarded; but all his reserve was set aside for her. Just for her. Yes, surely there was love there, though they’d both been fighting shy of naming it for so long now; surely, they couldn’t hide from that truth much longer. One of these days, one of them was going to say something, do something; she’d let herself take his hand, he’d step closer and offer a kiss. The thought was enticing. _Oh Cassian…_

Damn, she’d meant not to think of him till she reached Tywardreath. How had she let her thoughts slip, so? Let it not be an ill-omen.

She rode on, up the green lane towards the crossroads of Castle Dore. 

The music was getting stronger, and she realised that it was moving, too; parallel to her progress, keeping hidden just behind the nearside hedge. She sat up in the saddle, looking around; pipers, she could hear, and the faintest tinkling of silver bells, and a sound of voices calling and making merry. Yet there was nothing to be seen. It was beautiful, and unearthly, and it called to her…

She remembered her destination with a sudden guilty jolt, cold against the warmth the sweet music had roused. _Up to the crossroads with you, woman, stay on the road and be on your way quickly. These can be no ordinary musicians. Stay silent, ride on, ride home._

It didn’t do to call attention to having seen or heard the Fair Folk at their festivities. 

But as she reached the turning of the four ways, she saw them.

They were quite unmistakable. Young men and young women, and others not so young but regal and lovely still. They moved in grace, dancing on a level place below the earthen ramparts of the hillfort, the ancient ring-work that the tales called King Mark’s Castle and told of as a home of doomed love. Merry dancers, and fairer even than their name suggested.

They wore clothes of fanciful style, in bright colours, rich as blossom and berries and autumn leaves. Long hair like silvered gold, crowned with strings of flowers and the wings of moths. Faces blush-red or moon-pale, golden or coppery, some were even apple-green, dawn-sky blue; utterly uncanny, yet beautiful, and every one of them both grave and merry, both youthful and agelessly old. She saw mouths that were red with wine, cheeks bright with excitement, eyes sparkling as starlight in the day. 

She could not see the musicians, yet the music was all around, floating high in the warm summer air and deep in the grass beneath their feet.

The herd of young mares she had been driving before her slowed as one, and stopped, looking around idly then stooping their heads to graze at the foot of the nearest hedge. Jyn’s own horse too came to a halt, tossing his head thoughtfully so his grey mane rippled in the air.

“Walk on, Stormy,” she bade him; but he only stood and looked about him like one enjoying the view.

The elven dancers hadn’t seen her yet. It was nowhere near to dusk; the light was barely going at all. She knew the tales; they would dance for hours yet if nothing took their fancy to do otherwise. She had only to chivvy her horse, and gather up the animals she’d brought to sell to Duke Bail, and go respectfully and quietly past them.

Not wondering at all at their fine clothes and the sweetness of their music, nor allowing herself even a second of curiosity. Never letting herself think of Chirrut’s belief, that all the things she had lost, her memories and her past, the elves had taken from her. 

Letting her mind glide by vacantly as she rode on, bidding her thoughts to stay idle, empty as a cloudy sky and cool as dewfall. That was all she had to do…

They were beautiful. It was so hard to hold on to all that Baze and Chirrut had taught her; hard to believe a scene so lovely could be so dangerous. 

A new tune started up, livelier and sweeter than ever, and Stormy pricked his ears and snorted, as though the sound brought him joy. Jyn leaned forward to pat his neck, meaning to gentle him without drawing attention to herself; and as she did so she saw among the silver-golden locks of the elves a single dark head, moving in the same rhythm. A quiet-faced man in plain human clothes was dancing there, clasping brown hands with his strange-lovely neighbours. Stepping gravely and gladly about, following in the twists and spirals of a circle-dance. A dance that turned and twined and snaked up the field’s edge, towards the old hill-fort. 

He turned towards her as she saw him, as though her thought of his name had called to him out loud.

It couldn’t be, but it was. Cassian. Cassian Andor, her Cassian, her friend, the friend she loved, was dancing with the elves.

_No, not Cassian! – not him as well! – they’ll take him, they’ll hurt him!_

She struck down the surging nightmares in her mind; not even memories, the ghost of memory rather, faint cries of loss that echoed and led nowhere. Too much loss, too much had been taken from her. Not him as well. She dismounted and ran forward, up the lane. 

A few yards before the crossroads there was a stile in the hedge, of oak bound with cold iron, a last guard against the power of the scene ahead. Jyn sprang over it; crossed oak and iron and left their safety behind her, and ran out into the meadow, into the midst of the festivities.

The dancers crowded about her. Sweet words, sweet musical voices chattering in delight; and the air was full of sweet perfumes, of flowers and woodland musk, of scented spices, of food and wine. Beautiful elven folk, lordly and lovely and idle, holding out their hands to hers, bringing a crown of cowslips, though no cowslip should be blooming so late in the summer; offering to dance with her, sing for her, bring her bread and wine “for your weariness, traveller!” Their music was laughter, their laughter was musical. Jyn stood as one turned to ice. 

All her life she’d heard of the danger of mingling with the Fair Folk; how chancy and tricksy they were, and mighty, and uncaring. All her life she’d known she must have been elf-orphaned, for how else would a little child be cast adrift on the moors as she had been? Every wise-woman and sage said the same thing, from Old Saw with his grumbling to wise Chirrut and gruff kindly Baze; it was elf-touch surely, that was to blame for the pain and the gaps in her memory, it was elf-tricks that had taken her parents from her. Everyone knew that was the kind of mischief they played on mortals. A poor lost child, taken in by the Rough Riders of the moor, raised by the strange-come foreigners with their magical ways, finding herself as best she could. 

Orphaned and brought up by strangers, just like Cassian, the Duke’s foundling and now his most devoted spy. 

_But I must not think of him by name. Only get to him, take his hand, bring him forth from this unnatural gathering somehow… Before they take him, before they take him too_.

Yet the faces that smiled into hers were neither hard nor uncanny, nor evil, but richly beautiful, wild and charming and full of joy. There could surely be nothing more innocent or more natural than to dance a little with people of such unearthly beauty (but _I must not, must not dance with them.)_

_(And yet – and yet – such beautiful music -)_

A face gazed down at her, ice-white and glorious, with eyes like onyx. Their hands pale as alabaster touched hers, glancing, lighter than a butterfly’s wing. A person and a smile so inviting, so cool and strange, their very presence sweet as apples and plums in summer; and she almost took the translucent hands in her own.

But suddenly the figure slipped away, and moved on, evanescent as a wave. A warm strong hand clasped hers instead and she shook her head to clear it of the seelie glamour, and looked up, into Cassian’s dark eyes.

As so many times before, she wondered at him. How unlike everyone else he was, so still, so quiet and contained, all his emotions held in check. The darkest eyes she’d ever seen, and that strange faint accent that no-one else ever shared, not even the most far-travelled soul. 

She’d lost so much, but him she had found, as he found her, and they had never lost one another. He was the only friend she had outside of her little family of misfits in the hills, and like those kindred souls he had held faith with her, when so few ever had. _My friend, my Cassian. The one I would choose. Don’t let go my hand now. I thought I was coming to find you, in Tywardreath. Not here. I was coming to tell you I love you._

She held his hand.

“Jyn,” he said now; and there was a sharp note in his voice, quiet and banked-down and urgent. “What are you doing here?”

“I – I saw you. Dancing.” Her own words sounded stupid, against the lyrical song that still echoed around them. She knew she couldn’t say aloud that she’d wanted to bring him away from the Fair Folk. Never, ever intimate to a Fairy that you think ill of them and their kind. “Just wondered if you’d like to ride home with me?”

“Later. Maybe.” He sounded husky, and she knew at once he was worried and hiding it. “But you shouldn’t be here. Come with me - this way.”

He drew her by the hand, away into the shade of the stone hedge, to where two older Fairies sat playing cards under a thorn tree.

He leaned in, close, very close, as if about to kiss her, so that she froze in shock and fearful hope; but it was only to mask how instead he murmured in her ear. “Do not eat their bread or drink their wine. It’s your doom if you do. Sit here and play with these good old souls, and wait for me. I’ll come to you again, if I can.”

If he could? The words were cold as a blade to her heart. “And if you cannot?” 

His eyes were deep and quiet on hers; they were speaking eyes, as though long words could be found in their depths, and they spoke even in silence. So, he could not say; it was a mission, then. Some new scheme from that chilly man Draven. But it was not Cassian leaving her. Jyn sighed in relief as he held her gaze.

He smiled as though she’d said something charming, and bent to whisper again. His voice was soft, tender as a dawn bird-call at her earlobe. “These are the Host of the Air. My dear, my Stardust. Have a care, and protect yourself.”

For a moment, as he drew away, he pressed her hand. She pressed back. Strength and reassurance in his eyes, and, she hoped, in hers. She’d rushed in, having no care at all, as she so often did, and he was right, as he so often was. She would not let herself endanger him with a scene. 

She smiled, at him, and then at the white-haired elves with the card game, and took a deep breath. _You’re in this now, girl, so play things right. Show the right courtesies and say the right things; and don’t let their sparkling light deceive you._

“I beg your pardon, but may I join you?” she said to the card players. “I have no goods to pledge but it would be an honour to play a game with such fair opponents.”

They smiled and nodded, and dealt her into the game. Their cards were not paper, but smooth pieces of polished bone, pure white as ivory beneath the painted symbols of courtiers and kings, diamonds and clubs.

Behind her, Cassian’s footsteps moved away across the sunlit grass. She forbade herself a single glance back. He would come back to find her. If he could. He must, he _must_ …

She played with the merry old men, and the hazy evening blew on, sweet and full of music, and somehow her mind lost all thought of danger or evil, or any ill that might come to pass. The shadows grew long and the dancers circled about, bright as birds with their fine clothes and many colours, their long shining hair and their laughter.

Cassian’s footsteps, again; he had come back to her, and she felt herself waken as though from a deep sleep. She nodded to her companions, set down her cards. Gods be thanked, he had come as he said he would, had come back to her, as he promised. As he always did. 

She held out her hand to him, but he hesitated, looking round at the elves who gathered behind him. They were watching, with expressions that were interested but not greatly so; as children watch a moth trapped behind glass, not caring enough to set it free.

The music was still playing.

“Will you dance with me?” he asked abruptly. His face was calm, hiding all emotion; then he smiled, but it was the smile of a courtier. The smile of a spy. He had never turned that look upon her before; not on her. Jyn hesitated, almost drew away, her heart quickening, palms suddenly sweaty.

The sun was sinking. She would have to go soon; and she must bring him away with her, or… She could not let herself think of such things. She wiped her hand quickly on her riding breeches and held it out again. “Of course.” 

“Must you?” one of the elves asked, sudden and loud. “The High King is waiting, Far-traveller, and you would tarry? - for a mortal?”

Cassian took her hand; faintly, minutely against hers, his fingers were shaking. He turned to look up at the speaker with that polished smile. “Just one dance, a moment only, my Lord. Allow me this much.”

She thought her feet must be frozen to granite, so heavy they seemed, but stumbling and trembling she followed his lead while the music wound itself around them. _This couldn’t be happening, surely, surely…_ But those words had a painful ring of farewell to them.

He wouldn’t leave her, surely, surely he would not. 

And yet… _Allow me this much_ ; the words of a man asking a small favour, asking for a last taste of something before giving it up forever. Her heart cried _No, no, no!_ but she danced in his arms like one in a trance and did not know how to stop him. 

_He wouldn’t leave, he can’t leave, surely he can’t…_

He bent his head as he had done before. Was it hours ago, minutes, days? She had no idea. Cassian’s dark warm eyes, so close. Her heart almost bursting in her ribcage, roaring like a storm. They were close as she’d always dreamed of being, one day. His breath on her skin, warm voice speaking soft in her ear. “You know what I am, Jyn. What I am and what I am pledged to. But if I could have had a different life, I would have wished for it to be like this. With you. Just you and I, dancing. It can never happen, not now. But if it could have been – “ 

So nearly the words, the feelings, she’d dreamed of him speaking. She tried to grip on to him, her left hand tightening on the leather of his coat, her right clutching his arm. “Don’t do this. Don’t go with them.” _Don’t leave me…_

But the thread of music was breaking, suddenly, all around her, and in its place a chiming of bells rang out fast and high as though in flight through the air. Cassian detached her fingers from his coat, gentle but undeniable, and set her back a single pace, at arms’ length from himself. Stood looking into her eyes. Her heart was shaking, and so were his hands.

Behind him the elf who had spoken still lingered, standing waiting with a few others. Cool faces watching, the first faint frowns of impatience showing.

“Don’t go,” she whispered. “Cassian…”

The sun was behind him, yet his eyes shone. “It would have been you, Jyn.” he said, very softly. “But you need to go. Forget about me. Go home, and live your life.”

“Far-traveller, come.” It was the same elf who spoke, and this time it was a command. 

Cassian held her gaze a moment more and then turned, with a smile so brilliant and so hard she could scarcely believe it was him. “My lord, I come!”

There was a sound, swift and wild, like all the world’s winds and the wings of thousand birds. Before her horrified eyes the whole gathering, elf-lords, dancers, card-players, all dissipated like smoke, and were carried away. A great rush of air swept them towards the slopes of the hillfort. For one moment a breath of the air looked back with Cassian’s eyes; then as one they passed through the ramparts, and vanished. 

The last bell-chimes, last notes of harps and pipes, rang out, high up in the air, and fell silent.

Jyn stumbled forward, the world around her suddenly in deep dusk. She held out her hands, shouted “Come back!” and, despairing “Cassian! **Cassian!”**

Nothing, and no-one, and stillness. Not even an insect humming. She turned, and saw Stormy standing like a statue, on the far side of the stile, and her herd of young horses all around him, grazing.

At her feet there was something pale in the grass. She bent and reached for it numbly. It was a playing card; a second one lay a few feet off. She’d scattered them as she rose to dance with Cassian; and he had let her go, and gone away.

She held in her hands the nine of spades, the seven of hearts. The unluckiest and the luckiest cards in the deck. Her fate, in those two simple chips of ivory and paint. The strength of her hands vanished and the cards slipped and fell into the grass, into the dark.

The last colour of the sunset had faded, and Jyn was alone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassian journeys to Elfland, and encounters the King of that country for the first time.

The last colours of sunset had faded, and he was caught, the half-light of Elfland folding around him like a veil. The elven people hastened through the grassy ramparts, through the arched gateway beyond, and he was swept along with them. 

He glanced back, for a last few seconds, and saw the sweet, mundane world of fading daylight and green fields, and Jyn standing staring with a look of such desolation it must surely break his heart in fragments.

He must not let himself think on her. Not on her, not on friendship lost, nor love never admitted, nor on the sunlight and clean air he would never again breathe. He’d always been a man set apart, who didn’t know his true home; had built what he could from nothing, and found a place for himself. But all that now must be left behind.

“Come, Far-traveller, come,” murmured the elves, hurrying him on. “Come, you must come before the King, the High King and his court await you.”

Nothing for him now, nor ever again, but his duty. As it must be, as it always was bound to be. Duty to the world that had made him, the men and women who’d saved him and raised him from childhood. Farewell to the green hills of Kernow, and to the whole bright universe of mortal kind, that now somehow, somewhere and by some means, he must save.

And never count the cost.

Cassian held his head high, and brought back the smile, burning it onto his frozen lips. “Yes!” he cried gladly to those who led him. “The High King! I must be presented!”

On the other side of the sudden archway, the hillside itself had opened before them. He saw a dark gateway and beyond it a channel dark as the mouth of a storm, and a passage glittering with crystal lamps, winding into the darkness; and with a numb heart he passed within, among the crowd of elvish dancers, and did not look back anymore.

In an instant the humid air of high summer was gone. But though they were moving at a speed like that of runners he could feel not a breath of a breeze against his skin. It was neither warm nor cold in the passage under the hill, but temperate, and the stillness of the air was palpable, dense and poised as though time itself had fallen still. Between the lanterns, each with its pool of light, there lay long tides of shadow, and under his boots the surface felt sometimes slippery as wet grass, and other times rough as the poorest and crudest mountain road. Even when they came into light, it showed him nothing, save the strange elvish faces thronging about him, and their eyes, so dark and so pale, and all of them gazing off into the distance, the way of their road.

He held back every question, held down every grief, and strode onward beside them. He had taken this mission willingly, knowing what it must entail for him, the necessity and the loss of it. Now he must go through with it in every final degree. He walked, and knew neither where he walked, nor how far nor for how long. The lamp-lit passageway wound about, sometimes sloping upwards or downhill, sometimes level. The night was thick all around, it impressed itself ever tighter against his eyes, packing in close around the gem-like lamps that illuminated nothing save his companions. Their pale calm faces, their rich clothes and jewelled hair. Their strange unruffled haste, and the unnaturalness of himself, mere mortal, keeping pace with them yet never losing breath.

Suddenly there were more lamps, spreading far and wide, a whole field of them; no, not a field but a lake or even a sea, for the light seemed to ripple and flicker as though on a vast sheet of water. Then the footing where he trod sounded hollow, and with murmurs of satisfaction the elves led him forward, onto a wooden surface. Was it a dock, a pontoon? - he couldn’t tell. Then the crowd parted around him, he saw they stood on a bridge of lamp-lit planks, that swept across the glinting water and far off into the distance, till it seemed no wider than a single thread. All around it, the vast flat emptiness of water, and the lights like waterlilies nodding.

Cassian inhaled carefully; there was no scent of salt or water-wrack, so it was not the sea. The lake gleamed, but there were no waves, nothing but the tiniest of ripples that seemed to circle out from each floating light, as though they were a thousand thrown pebbles, held forever at the instant of breaking the surface.

His footsteps and those of the elves all around him echoed, in the narrow space under the wood, and soared up, and the sound fled away across the water and was lost.

Ahead, very slowly and then very fast, the light began to grow, and walls arose out of the lake, with towers and parapets and banners that hung lazy in the still, mild air. It was a fortress, but one large as a whole town, and a light like the late afternoon fell upon it, though all around the rest of the lake was in darkness like the dead of night.

Up on the watch-walk, where guards should have stood attentive, a few armoured elves lazed, watching idly and talking, their weapons laid casually to one side. 

The dancing party called up to those at the nearest tower, and were greeted mirthfully; and from the featureless wall a gateway opened suddenly. Tall and wide, with roses growing over the arch. The dancers went in, laughing at the prettiness of their entryway; and Cassian went with them.

Here at least, inside the walls, he could put to use some of his skills. He counted doorways and turnings, mapping the route they followed through the elven city. The party swept along through the bright streets, sometimes hurrying, sometimes dancing again as their music rang out all around and the sound of bells flowed alongside them once more. From the lanes inside the entrance, through plazas and green gardens, all the way to a square edged with fine arcades, where wide marble steps ran broad as a highway, up to the gates of a palace like nothing he’d ever seen. Stone of white and golden-blond hues was carved in a filigree so intricate it resembled lace more than rock, and inset with glints of bright colour. Jewels, he thought, and then wondered, maybe glass, or tile mosaics? But who could tell, what marvels the High King of Elfland might conjure up? To a mortal ruler real gems would be impossible, but here…

Who knew if this was even the King’s only, or main home? Who knew if this fantastical building with its spiralling turrets and cascades of windows, its columns sculpted with vines, flowers, dancing figures, with its silvered lanterns and its gilded doors, was even real?

Whether permanent or merely a construct for the King’s amusement, this was where he must learn to live among elves. The Fair Folk, as Jyn would call them. Here he must learn their ways of bargaining, their tricks and their scruples, and win from the King the information, and the help, that humankind most desperately needed.

_I bring an offer, and it is a fair one, of alliance and friendship against the coming dark; and I must win the like in return, or die trying._

_If I can do that much, if I can convince this Fae lord of my truth, and get his word, then every sacrifice I’ve made to come here will have been worth it. We cannot face the Lord of the Isle of the Torrent and his armies alone._

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been travelling; in the strange stillness and temperate air of the Land Under the Hill there seemed to be no tiredness. Cassian held his head high and went where the elves went, letting himself be guided by the merry company; up the sweeping roadway, to the carved wall of the palace, that sparkled in the ever-westering light. The doors stood open to welcome them in, and he entered.

At every turning through the city he’d expected to be cut out of the crowd and taken aside, detained as an interloper by soldiers or watchmen. Outsider, mortal, stranger; surely there’d be some way of taking him under guard, even if the rest of the returning dancers were simply allowed to gambol back down the homeward road without a murmur of questioning. But he was still walking freely among them, as they made their way onward, from high-pillared entrance through chamber after shining chamber. Left turn, right turn, stairway, left turn again. They passed by a closed door carved with flowers like daffodils, and went through the next one, and turned to the left again. _We are spiralling, moving around as we climb higher._

They were taking him into the heart of the royal palace, without hesitation, without even a pause or a word to bid him prepare himself. To set him at his ease? – or place him at a disadvantage?

Still mapping in his head, he prepared as best he could for what might come next. Would it be fanfares and spectacle? Threats, demonstrations of power? A friendliness to put him off-guard? – even genuine friendship, the elves simply curious and charmed at his arrival among them, as the dancers had all seemed from the first?

He remembered the cool tones of the person he thought of as The Lordly One; no, not all were charmed, not all innocently interested. That one at least had seemed entirely aware of the possibilities, the reasons both wise and vastly foolish, why a mortal might come willingly to eat and drink and dance with the people of the Invisible Land.

He must not allow himself to be unsettled by any of it. He was here to do a job, nothing more.

The latest chamber was the largest yet, with a roof of many arches, so high Cassian could almost imagine he saw birds flying about up there, in and out of the windows, in and out of the night. Coloured lanterns hung on every side, bright as gemstones. And at the far end of this great hall, from a silver-canopied throne on a white stone dais that seemed to be lit from the inside with the light of thousands of fireflies, a figure rose, and came forward to greet the company.

As one, they bowed, sweeping back their dancing robes and bending their heads in homage. Cassian alone was left standing, for the fraction of a second it took him to register the movement all around and respond to it. A beat behind the others, he too bowed deeply. 

He knew he stuck out. The only one dressed in plain breeches and hose and leathern coat, the only one with hair no more than collar length, the only one bearded, the only one whose skin was coloured by a mortal sun. He had no graces or smiles, no velvets or silks to make his curtesy look rich. He was grave and serious, and plain, and mortal.

“So,” a soft voice said, from above him, and very near. The figure had come close, right to the edge of the dais, so that he needed only to look up from under his brows to see their feet. White leather boots with walrus-ivory spurs. “This is the mortal who sought us out, is it, my brother?”

“It is, my King.” The Lordly One. So, the High King’s brother; no wonder he’d seemed to think so highly of himself.

“And does he truly come freely?”

“He does, my King.”

“Has he eaten, has he drunk, has he danced among you all, willingly and with good cheer?”

“He has, my King.”

There was a pause. Cassian stood quite still, refusing himself the luxuries of impatience and curiosity. He kept his eyes on the toe of the nearest boot, and waited. The King was waiting for him to act; well, two could play that game. As well to let them know straight away that yes, he had indeed entered into this in complete willingness and self-awareness, and not in innocence but to some purpose of his own.

The silence held on, like a drop of rain on a spider’s web, clinging unable to fall.

Then the Elvenking laughed.

“Indeed, so I see.”

The white boots came still nearer, and a hand brushed the shoulder of Cassian’s coat. “Come, Far-Traveller, you are welcome here, where all who wish to may find their joy among my people.”

_Not me_ , Cassian thought. _Not **my** joy, never that; but my mission, yes, if the Gods will it, that I will find._

He stood up straight and raised his head, and looked the King of Elfland in the eye.

_Now all my skill must serve me, for this will be a battle indeed._

The king was pale, the whitest face he’d ever seen, eyes blanched as clouds, hair like combed mist and storm clouds. Impossible not to imagine that even his blood must be white, and his breath cold as bone. Yet he smiled. Ivory teeth, lips pale as frost.

On one tooth, a gemstone was inset. It glittered blue in the snowy whiteness.

“Tell me, Far-Traveller, what hopes brought you here?”

Such a cool voice, unemotional, barely inflected. He wore no crown, this king; he did not need to. Majesty and power, and the uncaringness of the mighty, flowed out from him like a tide. He was cold and hard and clear-cut, without shadows, without doubt. A being certain as death, strong as granite and as inflexible.

_Of all the people in this place, I am the only one who knows shadows, or colour, or the truth of darkness._

Cassian did not bow again, but stood, holding his calm like a precious thing. “My Lord,” he said plainly, and did not answer the question.

The Elvenking’s smile grew wider. The sapphire sparkled.

“You have strong nerves, mortal. And patience. It is a rare virtue, even among my own people.”

“Thank you, My Lord.”

“And you are come through the borderland, from the gate with Albion? Yet you are not one of” – and then the king broke off; for a moment he held his head on one side, as though catching some far-off sound. Then turned back, all glinting smiles again. “So, tell me, what word do you bring, from the world of men? What message, and what bargain? Never in all my lifetime has a mortal sought my people out, who did not seek to win something from us.”

“My Lord, this is true.” Cassian bowed again. Time now to give his message, and deny himself any sign of curiosity. “Word has reached us in Albion that the Empire of the Formorians plans to invade us. We know their attack will fall first upon Kernow, the land we call Cornwall, and we believe it will come, not from the sea, but from the gates between our kingdoms. My Lord of Cornwall seeks an alliance with you and your people, to hold off this common enemy, and prevent the breaching of the veil between the worlds. If we work together, both Kernow and the Invisible Land can be saved. But we must act swiftly.”

“And what do you offer in return?” the King asked.

“Myself, to serve you, for the rest of my days.” There, it was said. All hope now must be laid in the earth, must be buried deep as the dead. He would dwell in this strange land and his mortal life would run away like water.

But the Elvenking smiled. “Truly, is this all? One mortal alone? A poor exchange, when you could bring so much more.”

“I am authorised to offer one thing more, if it pleases you to hear me, My Lord.” A thing he feared no Elf or Fae would touch; mortal soldiers to fight beside the Elvish army, with swords and arrows of cold iron. A thing unheard of, and an affront to every custom of the Fae. 

Desperate times, desperate measures. 

It was an honest offer, but to make it seem advantageous to the king, that would come hard. This would be a strange wrestling of words. He drew a deep breath, his lips parted; but the king spoke first.

“Indeed,” he said. “One thing more, but a mighty thing, one that only a Far-Traveller may bring. I will hear your offer.”

Abruptly he turned away, and strode past the white throne towards the farthest end of the chamber, leaving the rest of the gathering. Over his shoulder he threw back a casual aside: “Come, walk with me, Far-Traveller.”

_He separates me from those with whom I have even the smallest acquaintance. He means this to be a duel in private. Placing me at still more disadvantage. But what choice do I have?_

There was a single low step to climb, onto the dais. Cassian’s boot looked very brown, and very worn, and dusty as an old dirt path, as he placed it on the featureless marble. He stepped up, not looking back, and strode after the retreating figure. White velvet and cloth of silver, the royal robe trailed on the paving. The king’s hair, blue-white and heavy as a storm, hung down his back like a second cloak.

There was a murmur of curiosity from behind and then, as though a spell had been broken, one of the elves laughed thoughtlessly, and suddenly the first notes of music began again. 

A doorway materialised, right upon them, and before he could blink Cassian had passed beneath its archway into the next chamber; the door closed behind and cut off the sound of the musicians, and the merry company.

He looked around; a hard, white room, all carved marble and ghost-light. A cold place for an interrogation.

But the king led him straight across this room too, without stopping, to a second door carved of silvered wood, and the panels opened untouched, for them to pass through.

Beyond, suddenly, they stood on an open terrace, in full broad daylight and all the colours and scents of the world. 

They were high up, looking down on a valley that was green and golden, white and red, bright as the Elven palace was blanched. Mountains on all sides, snow-capped peaks dazzling in the distance, sheer rock faces that blazed back the hot sunlight, a wooded valley far below, all under a soaring cloudless sky. Like nothing he had ever seen in Kernow; nothing he could ever recall seeing on God’s good Earth. Yet hauntingly beautiful; those mountains would stand bright on the horizon; those snowy points would shine above a far-off plain like diamonds against the blue. 

Was this then the true face of the Invisible Land? Or some other place entirely? – one of the other myriad kingdoms of the Fae, interleaved and inward within the mortal world?

The height was unnerving; it giddied Cassian. The plunging fall in front of him was far, far too high, coming from the room behind, from the palace and the road there. He knew in his muscles that he’d climbed no more than twenty feet on the stepped streets of the city; no more than one step further, to join the Elvenking. Yet now he was hundreds, maybe thousands of feet up, perched on a mountainside.

When he looked back, the doorway was not of wood, nor the walls of marble and gems. Rather it appeared they had passed through a rip in the mountain, and there was no sign of anything save bare rough stone, untrimmed and stark. 

He clenched his jaw down hard on the first words that wanted to come. _Where is this place? Why have you brought me here?_ The chance to speak with the king would likely be brief; even more so if he gave in to ignorant questions like that. He must not waste a single word of this chance, on responding to these tricks.

If it was a trick.

The air was high and clear and crystalline, and the mountains and valleys stretched off on either side, as far as his eye could reach. There were birds circling below, gliding and turning as hen harriers do, on currents of air rising from the valley floor. The air carried a faint scent, so barely there he struggled to catch it; woodsmoke and resin, and the bite of snowfall. Far below, a line like a dropped strand of wool lay winding along through forests and meadows, stringing together bridges the size of toys, and a river bluer than woad, and leading away, to a cluster of roofs in the distance.

Homes, granaries, shrines. He could name them all, the different structures. The smoke rose in thin still columns, into the pellucid air. All was familiar, though he could swear he’d never seen this place before. Yet it was as though he saw the hearth-fires of home, and the heat was calling to him.

_No. **Think.** This is mere spell-casting, trying to throw me, to make me speak in fear and without forethought. They want me thrown and shaken. _

_I have more power in this meeting than I know, if they want to shake me from it._

_He asked the dancers was it true I had come willingly? There is some magic in that, then. Because I did not need to be tricked into joining them. Because I ate their food for my own purposes and not theirs._

_But what is this place, and why does he bring me here, why show me this?_

_I must learn more._

One last deep breath, and Cassian made himself turn casually away from the panorama, to meet the ocean-cold eyes of the king again. Watching eyes, considering, calculating; a glance he recognised suddenly, as measuring as his own.

“What would you ask me, Far-Traveller?” the king said, prompting him. “I see you want to speak. Come, have faith in me, and tell all. Or have you come solely to wonder at the marvels of my kingdom?”

_My kingdom_ ; yet no gesture, not even the flicker of an eye, towards the mountains. Was that then not part of his kingdom at all? It was subtle, but unmistakable _. Strange. Interesting._

“No, my Lord,” Cassian said. “I come here as I told you, on behalf of my people and my land, to seek an alliance in our hour of need.”

“Indeed.” The king’s expression was almost startled for a moment. “Your people. Your land. But you have more to say, do you not? Pledges you gave, long ago, and answers that you have sought, now and throughout your life?” And this time, for a fraction of a second, his glance did go to the view.

_Which is - very interesting indeed; but baffling. Pledges long ago? How am I to make use of this, when I have no inkling what it means?_

“All mortals have questions, my Lord. It’s our nature to seek and to ask. Is it not so among any of your people?”

A diversion, masked as mere politeness; it got him another smile, an approving one this time. Lips parting, a quick wink of the sapphire on the ivory fang.

“Some of us, yes. Those who take pleasure in puzzles, or have an interest in the world of men.”

“Those like yourself, perhaps, my Lord?” Cassian gave a slight bow, to hint an implication of flattery. “Perhaps I too could answer some of your questions, Lord King.”

“Oh yes!” The king of Elfland was beaming suddenly. Cassian smiled reflexively back, registering how quickly the agreement had been offered. Too quickly; was there still a way to turn it aside? “Oh yes, we will have an exchange! I will accept your bargain!”

No more immediate prevarication presented itself other than to bow again, respectfully deep, as his thoughts raced. Then he saw it. **_I will_** _accept – not **I accept**. He wouldn’t speak of it in the future if it was already fixed in the present. Which might mean_ \- “As you say, my Lord; perhaps we could.” He emphasised the last word faintly - we could – not we do, not we will, only we could – and was rewarded this time with a tiny crease of irritation on the royal brow. _Yes, good. So I’m not bound to him yet, though he had thought he’d caught me._ “Perhaps” - he needed to make this sound quite idle still, a matter of minor interest – “perhaps I might ask your majesty about the other kingdoms here, about their peoples and customs, and their rulers.”

The king’s eyes snapped. “There are no other rulers here.”

“Indeed not, my Lord. I miss-spoke in my ignorance, and ask your pardon. I was thinking of your neighbours, of whom I’ve heard many stories – of the Empire of the Formorians, for example. Or the Isle of the Torrent and its lord, the king of the Fire-hand. But perhaps they are only myths of my people.”

“Myths of your people? I don’t think so.” The king sounded unperturbed again; but a curious hint of emphasis on the word _your_ caught Cassian’s ear. “Of course the Formorians are real. My own cousin rules them. You may even know his name, for my spies tell me his power is so great he has no fear of being known and named even by his enemies.” And then with something almost mischievous in his voice “ _Do_ you know his name, Far-Traveller?”

_An honest answer now, I think._ “I do, my Lord. I did not know if it would be thought discourteous, to name him here.”

“You come here as an emissary, yet you do not know the customs of my kingdom.” It was not a question. “Nor, I think, those of others. Even your own.”

Cassian kept his voice studiedly neutral, though that last cryptic remark had a sting. “Maybe so, my Lord.”

The Elvenking smiled, and set his smile aside again. “You may speak the names of other sovereigns here. Within my borders they are as safe from you as you are from them.”

Which was twisty even for him. Inviting Cassian to ask _Why_ , and _How_ , and _Safe from what?_ Trying once again to lure him into giving up the advantage.

_Then it is time to go on the attack. While I still have an advantage, even if I don’t know what it is_. “Thank you, my Lord. Then I might ask you what you know of the Formorians, and of their ruler, your cousin Palpatine? What do you know of their plans and hopes, and whether it’s true that they mean to cross into the mortal kingdom this winter?”

They stood then, looking one another in the eye, for a full count of ten, until Cassian had to blink. But not before he’d had the satisfaction of seeing the first flicker of respect in his opponent’s eye.

“So. It seems you already know much of them. My neighbours, the Formorians. Their plans, and hopes, and dreams.”

“Of their plans, perhaps. We too have spies. My Lord.”

Without a word, the king moved his left hand suddenly. The terrace beneath their feet vanished. The illusion of falling was so abrupt and perfect it was impossible not to stiffen, to brace for an impact. Yet there was no rush of air, and none of Cassian’s other senses gave any indication of falling. He snatched in his breath, held himself up by willpower alone.

The valley floor leapt to meet him, dizzyingly near, and the mountain peaks disappeared into the heavens. But the air was still as death, his feet remained stable, the hideous descent an illusion.

_Still trying to unsettle me. I must hold strong. Not flinch._

The world came to a standstill again. Mighty trees surrounded them, entwined and crowned with vines and strange thick encrustations of growth along every bough. Bird cries echoed, and the hum of insects; even the heat seemed to sing. A trackless forest, ancient and rich beyond imagining, and not one tree or flower he could name.

Yet there was a scent of flowers in the air, and again for a second Cassian felt an echo touch his mind. Something familiar, something he should be able to speak; he caught at it, and lost it. 

Once could have meant nothing, but twice could not be a coincidence. There was some purpose to these illusions. They were particular, specific. The king was offering his own bargain.

But a bargain of what, with what, for what? There were wheels within wheels here, and tangles within tangles. And only him to puzzle them out.

He stood firm, breathing the humidity, with sweat beading under his shirt and the faint familiar smell in his nostrils, and made himself smile. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AKA the author shamelessly messes around with Celtic folklore and mythology.


	3. Chapter 3

At the entrance to the blacksmith’s forge two huge upright menhirs supported a capstone larger than an ox. Beneath, Jyn could see a sharp glow of flame, and then darkness, running back into the depths of the mound that covered the smithy. Rumour had it, the mound was a tomb, the burial place of ancient kings and queens; rumour had it that weapons of bronze and stone, and treasures of gold, lay hidden deep within, the riches of those same kings, watched over by the covetous eyes of ghosts and the calm grey gaze of the smith. 

On the flat granite slab that lay before the doorway, those same rumours muttered, prisoners had once been sacrificed; or children. Or the kings themselves.

There was a magic in the blacksmith’s art, she knew that much, and magic oft went hand-in-hand with the unspoken, and with dark and ugly histories. But rumour could go hang its murmuring self. Jyn needed magic. 

She wasn’t afraid of dark places.

The oblique light of daybreak fell across the dewy grass of the mound, and threw long shadows. In the beech hanger behind her the woodland birds still sang, though dawn was already past. But out here on the open hillside the forge of Wayland’s Son was silent and nothing moved in the passageway beneath the long-barrow.

Sacrificial altar or no, people had always used the flat stone on the grass in front as a place to put down their payment for the smith. Two copper coins for an iron horseshoe, to ride the roads of men. And a gold coin, said the rumours, for copper horseshoes, to ride the roads of another world. An invisible one, the home of darkness and fairies, away Under the Hill.

Jyn hoped silver would be enough. She’d never had any gold to her name.

The silver wasn’t strictly hers either, of course. She’d stolen the coins from the Duke’s spymaster, last night. If Draven was going to send Cassian off on a mission as dangerous as this, he could damned well learn to live with having his pockets picked by the horse-traders‘ foundling. It wasn’t as if losing his respect would change much for her; he’d never trusted her as it was, long before she’d stolen a thing.

_When I send an agent of mine to gather intelligence or discuss matter politic, I do not have to tell his friends about it, girl. You know nothing about our work. Be grateful for that._

_I know enough,_ she’d retorted. _I know where you’ve sent Cassian_. _I know he doesn’t expect to come back._

But the spymaster had simply glared, and turned away.

She looked at the coins in her palm; two silver discs, moonshine bright, embossed with the flying chough of Kernow. Slightly sweaty now from her clutch.

It was her only hope. There was nothing else she could think of, short of involving people who did not deserve to be dragged into this folly of hers. 

She mustn’t even think of them. If anyone could catch the feel of her thoughts and come hurrying to help, it was – _No. Don’t. Don’t think about them._

She laid the silver on the rough stone surface with a clink. The sound echoed, and the echoes seemed to move away from her, as though they were being sucked into the darkness of the forge. And then there was stillness. Even her own breathing seemed hushed. Waiting, as the oblique morning sun fell on the dew, as the warmth of the day began to grow, and the birds sang on.

For a long time, nothing moved within the entrance to the smithy. Then the darkness did. 

Out of the shadows, another shadow emerged, and it seemed to Jyn a figure composed all of the dark. It straightened and stepped forward, and towered above her in the daylight, and blinked down at her in impassive surprise. 

Wide, pale grey eyes, shining like steel in a steel-dark face; grey skin, ash-grey hair, and all his clothing too was grey. 

He was not grey-haired as a man might be, from passing years, nor grey-faced as one might be from exhaustion, but as though coloured uniformly so, grey all through, as a stone is. A being of steel or granite would look so. The hot burned smell of forge-fires clung on him, as the scent clings about a rose. 

Yet in all other respects he seemed as human as any other man, brows raised and eyes cynical. 

“Kay, son of Wayland,” Jyn said, speaking firmly though her heart was jolting inside her. She had always found the smith utterly terrifying, though she could never have explained why. It was hardly as though he could help the colour of his skin and eyes and hair, any more than she could help her own pallor and brown locks and odd green eyes. Kay Waylandson was no enemy, and she knew him to be loyal and wise, if somewhat sour-hearted. He had never done anything to deserve her alarm. She held up the coins and swallowed her fear. “Here is silver for you. I seek your service.”

“Oh. It’s you,” said Kay the smith bluntly in reply.

He blinked again, so slowly it looked like a deliberate action, and tilted his head to scan the hillside and the distant fields and woods. Jyn wondered again at how one given to such manners could ever have become friends with anyone. Yet to Cassian at least he was, a friend as close as a brother.

Finally he turned back to her. “Where’s the horse?”

“Didn’t bring him.” She’d hoped to make that sound nonchalant, a shrug in words. It came out tight and angry with tension.

“Can’t shoe a horse that isn’t here,” Kay retorted.

“That isn’t the service I need.”

“I’m a blacksmith. That’s the service I sell. Unless you’ve lost your sword. Which from what Cassian’s told me, I doubt.”

She had to swallow down the strange thrill that rose in her at the sound of Cassian’s name. They’d spoken about her. “It’s for Cassian that I’m here.” _Please, please let him realise what I’m trying to say…_

“Well then, for his sake, I won’t take your money. Since you don’t have a job for me.”

She could have shaken him. Though it was doubtful he’d even notice, given the disparity in their size. Why must he be so literal? So obtuse. Wretched man. Or half-man, or whatever he was. “Son of Wayland, I do have a job for you. One that none but you can do. I ask you this for Cassian’s sake. I need your help to get to the Invisible Land.” 

Kay fixed her, unblinking now, with his head on one side. “You’re out of your mind,” he said at length, sounding barely surprised at the notion.

“No, I haven’t. Kay, he’s been taken away, taken by the Fair Folk, into the Land Under the Hill. I know you can get there and back. I know what you are.” She did not know, in truth; it was a guess she’d worked out over years of puzzlement, but she held her voice steady and hazarded on it. “I know you’re half-elven.”

The smith’s ways were strange, his looks alien, his skills uncanny; his work already kept him on the border between worlds. No-one knew the name of his mother. Everyone knew Wayland Smith had been close to the Fair Folk. And the rumours about copper horseshoes and riding unseen paths had to have come from somewhere, didn’t they?

Kay stood even straighter at the accusation, staring her down. She thought for certain he would direct her to the road to hell, but instead of a sudden he said “Not from Under the Hill. I was born – elsewhere.”

“But can you get me into the Invisible Land?”

“I _can_. Whether I _should_ is another matter. I gave Cassian my word I wouldn’t tell you where he’d gone.”

Impossible to deny that that hurt. Jyn bit her lip. “I already know where he’s gone, so you can keep your precious word clean. Please, Kay.” Her voice cracked. “I know he’s your friend. Please help me to help him.”

At last, the smith came forward. Just two strides brought him past the altar stone, out into the sunlight. He did not take the coins she’d left there; did not even spare them a glance. “Jyn, listen to me. Cassian asked me not to tell you of this mission, not to say where he was bound. Deduce from that. He wanted to protect you.” And, a little ungraciously “He said I had to be here for you.”

“Well, he doesn’t get to choose what I do. And nor do you.” She darted past him and bending to snatch up her silver she offered it to him again. “If you want to be here for me, help me! Help me to help him, before the Fair Folk take his soul.”

“This is unfair,” Kay said bluntly. “Unreasonable. You are always unreasonable, Jyn Erso. By that call, I should have to come with you, and that would be a long way indeed from what Cassian meant.” The grey brows pulled together, a brief knot of frustration. “Besides, I’m not good at helping people. You would have done better to ask your wild friends, out on the moor.”

_Bodhi, Chirrut, Baze; why did he have to make me think of them? Now no doubt Chirrut will know…_ “They’ve struggled long and journeyed hard to find peace, and a safe home,” Jyn said. “I don’t want to drag them into this mess. Them, or you. This is for me to do, alone. Please, Kay. Will you help me, or not?”

The morning sun was hotter already, and the birdsong had fallen silent. Two hours or more since dawn already. Time was wasting, and she and Kay the smith stared at one another, unspeaking.

Finally Kay said “He ate their food, no?”

She nodded.

“Then that’s a bargain stated, in that act. A bargain and a binding. He means to go through with it. You have to make an exchange. That’s the way you deal with elves.”

“Then help me get into the Invisible Land and I’ll strike a bargain of my own to get him back!”

“You’ll need more than silver to offer,” Kay said pointedly. “The Elvenkings have wealth untold at their disposal. And Cassian won’t thank you if you try to exchange your freedom for his, so I hope that’s not what you had in mind. Do you have anything to trade? – anything a lord of the Fair Folk would value?”

Jyn thought of the playing cards, stowed away in the bag she bore slung across her back, and the leathern halter she had wrapped them in. Of the long iron knife she carried sheathed at her belt, the short club that swung at her hip. Of her crystal necklace, the stone no-one had ever been able to name to her, the last thing she had from the times _before_ , from her childhood and the places she could not remember. 

How small and worthless all her treasures, and all she was, would surely be, next to the wealth of Elfland. 

She said “I can fight, tame horses, ride any creature no matter how wild. I can trade my strength, my skills. My luck. I don’t know what else they might care for. I’ll have to find out.”

There was a sudden beating of wings in the silent sky, and before Kay could answer her, a bird with black wings and a bone-white beak fluttered down and landed between them, on the flat stone. It opened its bill and said chidingly “There you are! We’ve all three of us been looking – looking for you, Jyn.”

How did they know? She’d tried so hard not to let her thoughts slip to them. But with Chirrut’s sensitivity, it didn’t take much…

“Please go back,” she begged the rook. “This is going to be very dangerous. I didn’t want you to be dragged into it.”

He fluttered away from her vehemence with a muffled caw, and ducked his head for a second as he landed; but looked up again and fixed her determinedly with one dark eye. “You know – you already know - I’ve seen danger before. We all have.”

“I wanted to spare you having to see it again,” she told him. “Bodhi, please” -

There was a crashing in the brambles at the edge of the beech hanger, and a brown bear appeared. He snuffed at the air in Jyn’s direction, before turning his head to shout back into the trees “Found her!”

The rook took off and flapped over to land on his back. “I was just saying, Baze, just saying, you’ve faced many a danger! You and Chirrut. Is Chirrut coming?” He cocked his head, peering into the trees. “I can’t see him.”

“He couldn’t decide what shape to use,” the bear said gruffly. “Vain old dreamer. As if anyone besides me notices what he looks like these days.”

He sat back on his haunches to rake a swathe of burrs out of his pelt. Bodhi sidled up to perch on his shoulder. “I care how he looks,” he said loyally. “He’ll be amazing, however he comes.”

“You flatter him,” Baze growled. 

Behind him suddenly, a wild cat slid out of the shadows and strolled forward, to sit down in the sunshine and begin to wash; paused theatrically after a moment to blink milky-blue eyes in a smile, and say a general “Good morning!” to everyone. 

“Ha. The whole party’s here,” Kay said with a sniff. He directed his steely eyes at Jyn again. “Are you still going to protest you don’t want anyone going with you?”

_I don’t_ , she was about to say; and knew it would be a lie. If they came too, perhaps with their help this thing could be accomplished. But to bring her friends into such danger – to do as much to Kay, when she must twist the promise he’d made, to do it. But for Cassian’s sake…

Shame ate at her, for the cowardice of wanting company when she went into such danger, and “I didn’t ask any of you to come,” Jyn said slowly. Praying she could be strong enough to make them go back, and do what she must, alone.

“Didn’t need to ask,” Baze said, his man’s deep voice coming gruff from the bear’s wide mouth. “Coming your way anyway.”

“But I don’t even know where _my way_ is,” Jyn protested.

“Your way is with you,” the wildcat told her. “Your path is clear. Easy to follow.”

“And we’re friends,” the rook finished in a tone of nervous triumph. “Friends stay together.”

She wanted to say _But you’re the last of the Jedhans. You’re too important to risk your lives with me._ Wanted to be strong enough, brave enough, resolute enough to send them back. _You deserve a life free from the Fair Folk and their indifference, from the Formorians and their malice, Elfland and its blocked borders._

But looking at their expressions of various determination, smugness, and fearful excitement, she knew with shame and shameful hope that she could not go alone. 

“I’d hardly be keeping my word to Cassian,” Kay put in “if I let you pass through and didn’t even try to help you on the other side. Under the Hill is an uncanny sort of place. You’ll need someone rational with you.” He gestured at the newcomers. “And I for one would feel more confident if we have their company too.”

The heat was starting to build. Jyn felt it in the silence. It was high summer still, the days long, the sunlight merciless from skies as blue as a chalkhill butterfly. 

When she set out at dawn she’d had no thought, ever to see another day rising, or another sky. She’d walked hearing the birds sing, for the last time, and thought her road went towards endings, despair, death.

She thought of darkness, and of hidden places, and of her own desperation; of lost things and broken pasts. Ways made unsafe, impassable, that maybe now could be safe once more.

Despite Kay’s admonition, she’d had no better idea than to fight her way through somehow to Cassian and then offer herself in exchange for him. But with help, with the risk shared, and other plans and skills besides her own, and other being’s luck and courage to bolster hers; perhaps, perhaps, they might yet win through. Might even live to see daylight again. 

Hope once admitted, it was impossible to shut it out. Instead of despair, Jyn saw light, and a road leading onward beyond the dark. Cassian standing in the dawning of a new day; smiling at her, speaking to her once again.

_Everything we have, Jyn, everything I work to protect, everything that lives and grows and loves on this good earth, is built on hope._

She’d meant to go alone; to shoulder the risk alone, if need be to die alone. She could not do it. The sudden knowledge of that blew through her like an autumn gale. She would not close off hope, and the road to life. Even the sourness of Kay’s words was warming to her suddenly.

“I am ashamed,” she told them all. “I wanted to choose for you. Please forgive me, please come with me. I’m grateful beyond words for your company and your help.” Nothing but danger ahead, still. But she would not be alone. “Thank you, my friends.”

Kay looked round at them all and sighed. “Very well then, all of you it is.” He indicated the mouth of the forge with a sweep of his arm. “This way.” 

Peering past the forge flames, she could see that the forge was but the mouth of a long, deep channel, a passage that ran on and on, deep into the hillside and the darkness. “We have a strange journey ahead of us,” Kay said “and the road changes often. Follow me, don’t look back, do not turn aside from the path. Remember what you see and how you tread, for you may need to return in haste.”

“I’ll remember all,” Bodhi promised, before any of them could speak. “I – I have that skill, I am a - I’m a pilot.” He spread his wings gracefully; lifting off from Baze’s shoulder he swooped past the blacksmith and flew down into the mouth of the passageway, and was lost from sight.

Kay raised an eyebrow, and for the first time he smiled. “Come on, then, the rest of you,” he said, and turned to go after the rook.

One by one, they followed, into the darkness.


	4. Chapter 4

Elfland was a place stranger even than Cassian had imagined. Nothing seemed to stay solid; nowhere was in the same place twice, and the passageways of the palace twisted, loathsome and alien, never leading the same way. Between morning and the next night, the whole world would change, transforming itself, turning inside out, till he felt the light itself would become darkness, and the darkness, light. 

Even the people around him changed; though they bade him call them the same strange things, yet they never had the same faces from day to day.

They expressed surprise, when he questioned who they were, these strangers. Disbelief, even. His confusion was apparently a kind of confusion to them. _Come, Far-Traveller, you know me; we spoke yesterday. I am the one you may call Lord Shine. The King asked me to be your guide._

He had never seen this face before. Nor that one, nor hers, nor his. Never seen those white eyes, nor the red brows that frowned above a blue face or a rose-pink one. Different, every one different and alien, every day.

_Why are you so unsure of your friends? I am the one who is called Appleblossom, Far-Traveller. This is my cousin, who you may call Lady Watchful. We have already met, we have been here daily; do you not remember?_

He knew it for the trick it was; yet another attempt to unsettle his mind and twist him into doubt. Knowing that helped, a little.

_Why do you worry, and sigh, and frown? Is Elfland not fair to behold?_

_Come, Far-Traveller, will you dance with us? Ride with us, walk with us, watch the lights on the lake? Our land is fair and all is well, friend. Be happy and dance with us._

They never told him their true names. Only _I am the one called_ and _You may call me_ ; never _My name is_. And in turn, he did not give them his name. _I am the one they call Far-Traveller, here._

They called themselves the same things, each day, while their appearance changed, swift as the dances of woodsmoke curling, or the sea mist blowing in come midwinter. They danced and laughed and were unconcerned, and their faces changed, and the whole world around them. Only his own being remained concrete, stable, certain.

And then, less certain. For all he knew this was illusion and trickery, it was hard, so hard, to hold on to the memories, the knowledge of a world where all being was fixed, all margins clear. The pictures in his heart felt thin, his dearest memories insubstantial, in comparison with this fleeting, flickering, dancing world and its constant transformation.

He stopped querying the changes. Greeted his companions each morning and pretended he saw nothing unnatural, about them, about anything at all. This was his life now; this was the world of the Invisible Land. 

He was taken to ride and to hunt with the court; taken to dance, linking hands with dozens of elves, all smiling in an echo of earthly sunlight, in an open square beneath the palace walls; taken to walk with Lord Shine, with Lady Appleblossom and Lady Watchful, and view the many, many rooms of the palace, and its passageways and winding stairs, with walls of white stone that shifted and shone like mist. 

His own room had a window, high-arched, the glass sparkling as though with stars. The window gave onto a new view, a different season, with each passing day. If they were days. He had nothing against which to measure time, whether it was days or weeks, months shrunken on themselves, or strange extended hours.

He had a room, a bed, rich clothing to wear; clothing that made him look like a short, brown elf with midnight in his eyes. An elf with no air of magic, and no powers of change. 

The horse they gave him was copper-coloured, and showed him no friendship. The elvish clothing made him strangely more self-conscious, for blending in the better.

The mirror in his chamber, the first morning, showed him his own face, haunted and dark; and then the glass clouded over and was dark itself. He knew with a dreadful certainty that it had to be another lock upon him, a holding-magic, to keep him bound here. Yet the next day there was a new mirror, framed in silver, which did not change.

There was no further audience with the king. But sometimes the panorama from his room resembled the mountains he’d been shown. Diamond peaks, far off, and a sky of sapphire blue.

Was it a week ago, a month, that he’d stood in the king’s presence, and debated with him? Time slid like water through cloth, here, inexorable yet stretched and delayed, swelling and rushing at once. He knew neither hunger nor thirst, nor the passing of time. One cup of elvish wine, one fragment of their bread, and this was his life. He foundered with the struggle of holding it.

_They are getting to me. They mean to, and they are. The Elvenking still means to win this duel._

_I must hold strong. Though I no longer know friend from foe or walls from air, I must hold to my own truth. I know who I am, and why I am here._

The long robes set out for him were finer by the day. Damask and velvet, embroideries of silk and of gold. A high collar to frame his face, lace-trimmed sleeves that hung down over the backs of his hands, and covered his scars, and his bitten nails. 

None of the Fair Folk ever wore a beard, he’d noticed. There were shaving implements in his room, with blades of finest silver, handles of white horn. He didn’t use them. Stopped looking at his reflection.

_I will send for you again_ , the Elvenking had said, at the conclusion of their interview (days ago, hours ago…). _When the time is right, we will speak once more._

Time, slippery and unhomely as it was. Time as tricksy as the Host of the Air themselves.

He had bowed and said _I will await your summons then, my Lord._ For what else could he have done? He was in the elves’ kingdom, bound by their laws; he must abide their will.

And the Elvenking did send for him.

It was Lord Shine who brought the command. Lord Shine, blue-skinned today and with broad marks of white and gold upon his face; his eyes were red and scarlet and peacock green, concentric circles that had no pupils, that looked everywhere and nowhere. Cassian thought of dragonflies, or of dragons. “Come, Far-Traveller, the King wishes you to attend upon him.”

He had nothing to take with him. He rose to follow his guide, and the alien magical rooms passed them by in a rush of smoke and a murmur of sound. Bare moments, and they crossed a starlit threshold, into the chamber of the throne.

Cassian had not been there since the first evening. The white walls and high vaults of the roof were as beautiful as ever, and unchanged, unnervingly so when all else seemed to transform itself daily. The paved floor was as shining, the gems and carvings and lanterns all just as brilliant. A richly dressed crowd was gathered, and high on the canopied seat the Elvenking sat in his crystal crown, toying with his hair and smiling secretly to himself.

In the midst of the space in front of him, sat down firm as a rock before the dais, was a bear. Brown-backed and solid. It stared back at the king. At its side sat a striped cat, washing its face unconcernedly. Amid all the unearthly finery of the Land Under the Hill, their forms seemed the more stable, the more decided; strength and an utter lack of fear radiated off them, as the day’s old sunlight comes out from walls and mountains even after the sun has set.

On their right, travel-stained and with arms akimbo, stood Jyn.

Cassian’s hands shook, seeing her. Jyn. He’d kept his thoughts from her, from her and all earthly things, with a daily resolve. Never regret, never look back. It was all he could do, for the choice had been made. But it was impossible to ignore her now. He took three paces forward, passing Lord Shine, barely seeing the elf-lord any longer. He had not even bowed to the king yet. He must speak, before hope and despair between them choked him.

Speak, and yet never utter her name.

“You – you’re here?”

She turned eagerly at his voice; started and stared, and said nothing. He could not bear it.

“Am I so changed?” he asked her “Do you not know me?”

Of course she did; she gathered herself to reply, and he saw in the hardening of her eyes how much effort her defiance was costing her, and her air of unconcern, here in this alien place. “No, no, of course you haven’t changed. It’s just you - your clothes. You look very fine, C – my friend.”

His heart warmed at the knowledge that someone had warned her. One of her horse-trader friends, perhaps. They’d always sounded a weird lot, foreigners and wanderers all, and with the tinge of magic in many of their tales.

The cat blinked its blued-over eyes at a spot just to the side of him, smiling. He realised with a jolt that it was blind, and marvelled, and pitied it. Then gaped, as in a voice of casual contentment it said “We’ve come to take you home.”

_Ah. These are no ordinary beasts. Even more so than I thought._

“I – I can’t come home,” Cassian said, staring, scrambling to keep his composure as he realised what, who, the two creatures must be. “You’re mistaken.”

The Elvenking was still smiling, satisfied as a cat himself, and as self-assured. Raising his brows as though amused by them all, this glowering woman and her animal companions. 

He held his thoughts back from their names. What in the name of light and life they thought they were doing, he had no idea. It was madness in them to have come here, into the Invisible Land, where nothing was real and no truth held to itself.

Cassian stepped forward, passing them all, and placed himself before the throne, where he could see both the king and the newcomers. He evaded Jyn’s hand as she half stretched-out, and as swiftly she drew back; and he chilled his heart against the look of hurt in her eyes. He bent his head before the king with all humility, and knelt on the cold stone; spoke with a world of prayers in his voice, and fought with their fire against the fear that held tight to him. “My Lord, I beg you to pardon these good souls and release them home. They came in innocence, and in ignorance.”

The bear snorted, but it was Jyn who said “Did no such thing.”

Again the torment of holding back her name behind his lips. “Please. Don’t be stubborn. Accept what grace is offered you.”

“We came to get you out of here,” said the bear tetchily. “Not to be shuffled off home again with some white elf’s blessing.”

“Never fear, Old One,” the king said suddenly. “My blessing is seldom given, and still more seldom earned.” There was anger in his voice, though his mouth smiled. 

Things were going wrong, and fast, all the hopes of Cassian’s mission slipping away further by the second, and after them slid any hope of getting Jyn and her companions out of here again with their freedom. 

“Kneel down and ask pardon, if you value your life,” he begged her. “If you value mine, or anything that matters to me and to your kindred on earth.”

The mulish set of her mouth wavered; but then “You owe no-one your fealty, Little Sister,” put in the bear. “Only kneel if you wish to.”

She stood firm.

At the bear’s feet, the cat had gone back to its washing. Behind its ears, now.

“You would do well,” the Elvenking told them both “to be silent, and know your place, for this realm is mine.”

The cat left off for a moment, one paw still raised. The whiskers above its eyes twitched in amusement. “We have not come for your realm, King Huon. Just for our friend.” It passed the paw neatly over the back of one ear again before adding “Wouldn’t you agree, Baze?”

“Even so,” said the bear.

The king was gaping. There was no mistaking the emotion that blazed up in his eyes; terror, momentary and savage as wildfire, and then swiftly after it, rage. He had heard himself named, his deepest magic flaunted like a bit of ribbon, here in the heart of his own land where none should have had the power to do such a thing. And the cat had given his own companion’s name so casually, as though it meant nothing. It hit Cassian, and he was afraid, even as his mind raced to find advantage in the knowledge. The power of names, the most ancient tenet of Elfland, did not bind these friends of Jyn’s. And from now until the king could find a new naming for himself, they all of them had a power over him, that he had not upon them.

King Huon drew breath. “You – you dare – you dare measure your strength against mine? You – **_Baze_**.” He snapped out the name like a weapon, and pointed; and the bear gave a huff of laughter, and sat unmoved. After a moment he raked thoughtfully at his fur, as though seeking out a flea; paused, and sniffed his claws, and scratched again. 

Jyn stood looking from one to the other in wild incomprehension. How she was holding her tongue he could not imagine, unless from sheer disbelief.

After another long scratch Baze said cheerfully “I’m not a patch on Chirrut here for powers, of course. But I do have my uses.”

“As you say, my dear,” replied Chirrut, tilting back his head; and they touched noses, tender as lovers kissing. Slow and inexorable, like smoke dissolving from that gentle touch, the bear’s form melted away, to re-form, slow moments later, in the shape of a man. 

Tall and burly he stood, with dark eyes that were cynical and calm, and long black hair bound into braids. The dense fur of his pelt became armour of padded cloth and lacquered bronze, and there were boots of tan leather on his feet, and in his hands he held an axe, propped before him casually, with the handle reaching almost to his chin. 

At the sight of the cold iron blade, exposed bare to the room, all the elves whispered, and drew back.

The cat gave one last dab behind his ears, and set his paw down on the paving.

It began to rain. Softly, from nowhere, from the cloudless ceiling of bright stone.

Behind Cassian, Lord Shine and the others gasped, and there were bitten-off exclamations; and the Elvenking looked their way with poison and knives in his glance.

The floor was already darkening with rain. The wet marble gleamed like crystal in the perpetual lamplight.

With a sigh, Baze held out one arm, spreading his sleeve above the cat to shelter him. “You’re showing off now,” he said, and Chirrut didn’t deny it.

Jyn put her chin up defiantly into the rain. “We will not leave until you set free our friend.”

The king turned his murder-eyes upon her. “Say you so?” he said. The breath hissed between his teeth like a cold wind. There was a sudden blast of icy air in the chamber. 

The rain became falling snow.

“Pretty,” said the cat, blind and smiling, blinking as a flake settled on his nose. “Well, this is fine sport.” 

“Sport?” spat the king. “I think you will find this fight is more than sport, Old One Chirrut!”

But the cat did not change at all, only blinked his wide eyes again, all amiability.

Cassian was still kneeling; he felt himself rather the fool, as the snowflakes fell into his hair and onto the wide shoulders of his elvish surcoat. He held up both hands again to the king, entreating “My Lord, my Lord” - but the king hushed him.

“We were coming to a bargain, were we not, Far-traveller, before these ‘friends’ of yours came blasting their rude way here? Your service to me, and from me by way of return, your mission fulfilled?”

No such bargain had ever been stated; they’d never got beyond the jockeying of mind-games. _Your mission fulfilled._ This was hugely more than he could have hoped for. Cassian bit down in time to stop his mouth falling open in a gawp of shock. How could he turn down such an offer? He fumbled for words, frozen to the spot.

“And I would show you certain things, to your interest and advantage,” King Huon went on after a second, into his silence “for pure goodness’ sake, and to honour you.”

A poor move, and tell-tale. The king must still be unsettled, more than he showed, to propose a further addition so much in Cassian’s favour, so swiftly. It surely was not from goodness, whatever he might say. _There are shadows behind the shadows, here, still._

_But I must speak, or risk losing his attention, and his goodwill._

“Indeed, my Lord. We had spoken of this, and of many things. No bargain had been fixed as yet, but I would be honoured to continue the discussion.”

On the king’s white hair and the crystal points of his crown, the white snow sparkled like gemstones, and did not melt. He said “Tomorrow, then. For this night, you may speak with your friends,” and his lips stretched wide on the last word, as though it pained him to speak it. The sapphire winked at Cassian and was hidden again. “You may leave us,” the king said. “Lady Appleblossom will show you to your chambers.”


	5. Chapter 5

“So what the hell was all that about?” Jyn demanded.

All the long way there, through the darkness behind the forge fire, the winding alien pathway under the hill, she had imagined she would embrace him the moment she saw him. Had meant to speak warmly, welcomingly, to show her heart and all it held, for the first time. Before she must go down, as surely she would have to, into the exile she’d freed him from. She had meant to win his liberty somehow, no matter what the cost, and indulged herself with the thought of that one happy memory, before they parted again. 

Her fantasy hadn’t extended much beyond that picture of herself enrolled in some elvish army, and Cassian looking sadly back as he left her there. A scene like something from an old tale; the mirror image of their previous parting.

It was too painful to contemplate what might come next, what would become of her, an elf-soldier without elf powers, and facing the coming war. But she would have liberated him from servitude. All other loss would be worth bearing, for that. She’d told herself so, over and over. 

The shabby stupidity of her plan felt now like dross; like dust and a handful of broken laths. She stood facing Cassian across the red and gold chamber where that blue-faced freak had led them. Lord Shine; what the hell kind of fool’s-name was that? Yet Cassian deferred to him as to a superior. And called that spitting snow-cat of a king “My Lord”. 

That king. That beast. Ruler of this land and its pretty, airy people. A sneering monster clad all in white; the very sight of him made something in her soul recoil in horror.

She wanted to scream, and cry, and smash the place; to draw out her weapons and rampage through the palace. She would hold cold iron to the king’s white throat, she would break every elf in the kingdom. If they had turned Cassian, if they had broken his spirit and turned hm to one of their own, then they would deserve every bit of it. Slaughter and wrath.

He was glaring at her as though she’d already begun. It dawned on her she must be glaring likewise, just from imagining how she’d fight to avenge him.

_Is that all I am? Vengeance uncontrolled, and the world’s anger?_

Baze stood looking between them and then sat down heavily on the great central bed, with a sigh of something very like disgust. Chirrut had set off on an inspection of the room the moment they entered; having quartered it thoroughly he now leapt onto the bed beside his husband and sat down with his tail wrapped round his paws. A few moments only passed by, before Baze’s hand stole out, and began to stroke the soft fur behind his ears.

The movement seemed idle and unconsidered, and Chirrut purred. He showed no inclination to change his form as yet. She could have wept, for such harmony as theirs.

Cassian had regained his calm face. He stood expressionless now, and did not answer her. It frightened her, and made her angrier yet, to see him suppress himself so; the last of her warmth vanished beneath the fear and frustration of that. “What the hell?” she said again, and “You’ve already joined them, then?”

His lips began to shape a word, and he stopped himself, and frowned. Then said instead “I knew what I was doing, when I came here.”

“You’re wearing their gear, you called that smug bastard _My Lord_ ” - it was hateful hearing her own voice say such things, with such bitterness, but it was release as well, she could finally allow her pent-up heart to vent itself, and he was the one standing before her – “you went native pretty quickly.” The words bit and snarled in her mouth, and her breath snarled back at them; pressing down, fighting back, crushing the longing to cry out his name instead. His precious name; to cry _Cassian, Cassian, please don’t leave me, please don’t leave your life behind!_

“I know what I’m doing,” he repeated. “How did you get here? Please tell me you didn’t eat their food.”

“Don’t be stupid. Course not. Stop deflecting.”

“I’m not! I have to know you can get back. All of you. How did you get here? – is there a way back open to you?”

She’d only planned for the others to take it, with him; but “Yes, there’s a way back. We had help. Your friend the blacksmith.”

Cassian’s eyes widened. “Where is he?”

“He’s waiting for us.” She raised a hand to try and gesture the way they’d come, the place where Kay and Bodhi were hidden, and realised, she had no notion of where it was. “O God, my sense of direction’s gone. Chirrut, Baze, I have no idea where – “

“Your path is clear,” Chirrut said. “The path for all of us will be clear, when the time comes to walk it.”

Baze said with a small smile “You think that helps?” still scratching Chirrut’s ears gently.

Cassian sighed, and said “Nothing here is like the world we know,” and his voice was weary, but there was sympathy suddenly in his face. “I’ve lost all sense of time. Every day the palace seems like a different place.”

“Every day? You’ve only been gone a night and a morning!”

He shook his head. “Not here. Nothing here is – _nothing_ ’s the same. Hold on to your sense of yourself. Please” - and again she saw him visibly hold back a word. 

“Don’t you go saying my name,” she reminded him.

“I won’t. I promise.” For a moment he seemed about to smile. It made him look thin, and hungry, and sad; and like himself again, at last. “You should not have come,” he said; and then “but oh, my dear, I am so very glad to see your face.”

“And I yours,” Jyn said. “Always.”

All anger left her, like a wild tide receding, and in the wasteland of the tide-rush they stood holding one another in their eyes. She tried to smile too, and felt herself shaking, the more afraid and the more exhausted now she had let go her shield of rage. _Oh my dear, my dear._

“I made – our blacksmith friend – swear to stay with you and keep you safe,” Cassian said at last. “I could slap him for sending you in alone.” Rueful, weary, yet he sounded himself at last.

“If you could reach that high,” she said.

He exhaled a silent breath, and his lips shaped it to the ghost of laughter; then suddenly he put up his hands and shrugged off the embroidered surcoat, and let it fall to the floor. Beneath it he wore dark breeches and a shirt of grey-green, plain in cut and without decoration. Clothing that looked almost as if made by human hands. It was a relief to see him free of the elvish finery.

“I’m not alone, anyway,” she reminded him, nodding towards Chirrut and Baze. “My friends are here and – our other friends are waiting for us, and we are going to work out how to get you home in one piece. You _are_ coming back with us. I won’t back down, you know that.”

“Please don’t say this. You heard the king. He’s just offered me everything I came for.”

“Can’t say I’d trust that one very far,” Baze said. He was still stroking and scratching Chirrut, and the cat butted into his big hand, with his eyes half-closed in pleasure. “We should move now, while we still have power over him.”

“And how is it,” Cassian asked “that he doesn’t have the same power over you? He knows both of your names! Yet you” - he held out both hands, empty palms up, at their unconcerned state. “Do you fear nothing?”

“We are what we are,” Chirrut said “and that is not what he is. We are creatures of a different magic.”

He stood up and stretched his back up into an arch, yawning luxuriously, a pink glimpse of oblivion in his forest of teeth. Then sprang down from the bed; and even as he moved, his form flowed and grew, into a man’s shape. Slim and dark, clad in his usual black and scarlet robes and soft-soled boots. He bore his longbow slung upon his back, and a sheaf of arrows at his hip, with many-hued fletchings, the feathers of pheasant and raven, of greenfinches and magpies and wild white swans. His blind eyes were smiling.

“And it is as you say,” he added. “We fear nothing. All is as the Force wills.”

“Speak for yourself,” Baze said with a grin. “I still have a few fears to keep me company.”

“To keep you from getting bored, you mean.” Chirrut put up his right hand into the clear air, and at once a long staff appeared, and flew to his grip. He curled his fingers round it and thumped the end gently on the floor. “So, tell us, Jyn’s friend. What is this bargain that Huon the Ugly claims he’s struck with you? Tell us everything.”

“Yes,” Baze said “now you’ve done flaunting yourself, let’s hear the Captain’s plan.”

“I’m no Captain,” Cassian protested. “And I don’t – “

“You came here first, you must take command,” Chirrut told him smugly. “So you will be our Captain. You came to strike a deal with King Huon, and from what he told us just now, you were close to gaining one.”

Cassian ran a hand through his hair. “No… No, it’s not like that at all.” The corners of his eyes creased in thought. “What he said just now, about a bargain, it made no sense. We had barely begun bargaining. We’re at the first stages, still. Concealing our hands, testing one another’s nerve. He has knowledge I need, and the power to protect the interests of mortals where they coincide with his own. He can call on his magic to close the gateways of this land to our enemy. But – he has shown me that he knows more. Things I never knew, that I did not realise anyone knew. And now today” - his face had set hard, lost deep in its thinking look, that was quiet, and distant, and set all of them aside, so that Jyn wanted to shout at him just to break his self-control. “The things he said today – that was far more than he has offered me up till now, and it was offered suddenly, as though he knew he must magnify his proposal at once, before he lost the chance. Or the initiative. Something has changed the shape of the story, to him. Your coming, perhaps? Or some other factor of which we know nothing? Why would he improve his offer to me like that?”

“Scared?” suggested Baze, hands on his axe, unsmiling.

“He should be,” Chirrut said “For we are terrifying, are we not?”

Cassian nodded slowly. “To him, yes, maybe. He can’t control you. His elven magic doesn’t bind you, and you haven’t eaten his food. So he panics, and oversteps, in anxiety to keep me in his power. And yet, it makes no sense. I am not worth panicking over! All I will be, when this bargain is done, is a simple human bondsman. Not worth making so great an effort over. Why would the thought that he could lose me again matter so much? There’s something more here. I have to find out what it is.”

“What do you mean,” Jyn demanded “he knows about things you didn’t realise anyone knew?” She felt her grasp of the world sliding, unknown dark things carrying Cassian ever further away. “Secrets of your spymaster’s?”

Cassian waved the idea of Draven aside dismissively. “No. In this game, such things are trivial. No, he knows – I think he knows – where I came from. Not the household of the Duke; I mean, where I lived before Cornwall. The things I don’t remember. Who I am. Where I was born.”

The thing they’d both had in common for all these years; orphans and foundlings, children of unknown parentage, from unknown homes. And Huon of Elfland was offering to tell Cassian where he really came from?

It stung, she could not deny that. She’d be more truly alone than ever, if that happened. No-one would ever value Jyn, the horse-traders’ fosterling, enough to seek out the truth of her birth. If she was ever to know, she’d have to find it for herself. She could understand his temptation.

“He hinted at it when we spoke before,” Cassian said “but not so direct as this. The gambit comes sudden, and that’s strange.”

“He knows we can tear up his plans.” The thought gave Jyn a heady rush of satisfaction. “Baze is right, he’s scared. Which means there is a way we can win. We just have to find it out. Get you back and win your mission.” She smiled savagely. “We’ve _spooked_ him.”

“We can use that,” Chirrut said. His smile as serene as her own felt wild. “Spooking is my speciality.”

Cassian frowned. “It’s a dangerous game you propose. A battle of wits, with the Lord of Faerie?”

“Bring it on,” Jyn said. Grim as the flame of hope inside her. “I’ll fight to the death if it brings you home.”

“May it not come to that.” Chirrut gave a curious gesture, as though drawing something through the air. “May we win with wits, not weapons.”

“You came armed,” she reminded him. “Hoping not to use that bow?”

“Always.”

Baze grunted and patted his axe. “Hoping to use mine,” he said. “Tell me, Captain. You say this king knows where you come from, and he over-reaches to keep you. Any connection, do you think?”

“There may be. What could I be, that would seem so precious to him? I’m just - well, I will have to find out what.” Cassian nodded slowly. “Yes, I see it now. It’s interesting, that he should want this so strongly.” He strode across to a chest against the wall and flung it open; inside, folded and clean, lay his familiar human coat. She watched with relief as he shrugged it on and turned with a smile. “He bargains on my hopes. So, I will bargain back. I have other hopes, God knows, of which he knows nothing. It’s time to take the initiative in this game. And maybe between us we can win more than we know.”

The coat closed with horn toggles and loops of dark leather. He stood smiling at Jyn, fastening them deftly, without looking down. The sight made her grin; here was her Cassian again, coming forth from the dark like a mayfly out of the black river. Making himself once again himself, and putting aside the elvish. They were going to get him back. 

She would find a way to do it. They would find a way. Together.

Cassian held her eyes a moment more; and once again, she was falling into their brightness, and their dear dark. She remembered how he had held her, in the dance, just a night and a day ago, when he though his doom sealed already. Now as then, he held out his hand to her.

_It would have been you, Jyn._

She reached out to take his hand. Together they went to the door. 

At their approach it opened, and outside stood the Fae lords and ladies who had guided them here. All three of them, the blue-faced and the deathly-white, all still waiting and watching. Eavesdroppers? Or attendants? She had no inkling. They looked down at her, blinking like sleepy bats, and shook back their glinting hair and their finery. There was a chatter of voices.

Raising his own voice against theirs, Cassian said “Take me to the king!”


	6. Chapter 6

It was a gamble. The King had sent them away for the night. Had left him unacknowledged for all these days. Or were they weeks? _You’ve only been gone a night and a morning._ And now here he was demanding to be brought back into the royal presence. 

If the king refused to see them then their hopes were built on sand. But he doubted that would happen. And if Baze was right; if he, Cassian, was valuable in some way he’d never known, because of _who he was_ , then he must use that advantage, and use it as ruthlessly as Huon would use his own powers.

_I have always told myself that I know who I am. Yet God knows, I do not blend in, among the fair-faced Celts of Cornwall._

_I will find a way to learn this thing you taunt me with, Elvenking. I will find the truth of me. And when I offer you my **true** Lord’s bargain, I will keep my word. Mortals to stand by you, to fight alongside your troops when the invasion comes, if you will just tell us when, and where._

He marched down the shifting, unearthly corridors, with Jyn’s warm hand held tight in his own, and her two strange friends following them to Huon’s throne room. 

_Huon_. The cat-man, Chirrut, knew the king’s name, and had spoken it before all his court. An insult, and a demonstration of power, brutal in its plain-speaking. The bear-man carried cold iron unsheathed, brazenly before the whole court. The king’s own magic barely even touched them, while theirs reached to the heart of him. Such uncanny beings; and these were Jyn’s friends, that she called her family, and told of so comfortably; _the horse-traders that raised me_. 

They were more than horse-traders, or he’d never seen a soldier in his life.

Lord Shine strode in front, impassive, sweeping the walls aside like veils, and behind them the two elf-ladies walked, drawing the world tight shut again with deft fingers. A new magic; hiding their passage through to the king, perhaps. 

They came into the throne room, empty now of the crowds and swept clear of snow. All around the chamber, the walls were shifting, like the wings of a myriad butterflies, as if the palace itself were breathing very softly or moving in a breeze. Waves of faint colour passed behind the translucent stone, and the inset gems gleamed richly, set-off anew by each pulse of blue or gold or sunset red. In the midst of it all, the King sat very still, watching and waiting as though he had known of their coming.

He raised a frosty eyebrow, and said nothing.

_How to begin? What can I say that will not antagonise him still further?_

_Is it best still to be diplomatic, or should I attack openly?_

“We need to talk,” said Jyn loudly into the silence. 

Baze and Chirrut had taken up positions flanking her, almost like bodyguards, and he saw that they were smiling. So much for diplomacy.

“My Lord,” he said, and tightened his grip on Jyn’s hand. “Pardon my friend’s impetuous words, and our sudden return. I fear our earlier pleasant debate must be set aside now. Matters more urgent are at hand. My companions here have brought me news.” He gave the tense hand another squeeze. _Don’t speak now, my dear, be patient and let me see how I may best handle things…_ “You know that I was sent to you as a token of goodwill, to bear news and treat for terms. The danger we all face has increased tenfold, and soon will engulf both your land and mine. I beg you to allow me to state the terms my Lord of Cornwall proposes, in plain and open discussion before all your court, so that we may the sooner find a way to defeat our common enemy.”

He dared not look at Jyn, though he was sure her eyes would be wide at the lies he was telling. _This is what I do, my dear; I am a liar, and have been for many years. Where you carry a knife and a stick, I go armed with untruths and sly words. I prey upon anxieties and hopes that twist sideways into fears. Even a king may be played, if you find the right words. And the Gods know he has sought to play me._

“Which enemy is that?” King Huon’s voice was silky. “I see no threats to my borders. I agree there are many to your mortal Duke and his realm. But what concern is that of mine?”

“Palpatine of Formoria threatens to march through your lands, and you see no threat in this?”

“He is my blood kin.” But for a fraction of time the King looked ill-at-ease, and his gaze flickered towards Lord Shine and the two ladies.

_Witnesses. Trusted servants, but still each one a witness. I must get the rest of the court here somehow._

_And I must press him, if I’m to learn where his real fears lie, and his real loyalties._

“Will you bow before your cousin, then?” Cassian pressed again. “Will you swear fealty, and accept this land as a vassal of Formoria? You know how the Irish sought to deny him, and he has slaughtered their armies and forced them to pay tribute. Never till now has the Emperor of that land held back from what he could take, as you well know, my Lord.”

King Huon’s eyes grew even colder. “You truly believe such danger exists? You believe my state so desperate? – that my own blood kindred would invade and conquer Elfland, and I would be helpless to prevent it? You understand nothing. Your mortal world, lying so pretty and green beyond our gates and borders, is but grass to me and my kind. Why would my royal cousin think to do harm to my people, when he can mow and harvest at will among yours?” He snapped his fingers. “You think to scare me? I am a being as far above you as the eagle is above the worm!” Ice crystals puffed into frigid air, and the walls faded to a grey like old ice. “Yet you withhold your best from me and seek to make me accept this paltry – this unprecedented, this unspeakable – this humiliation? Armed mortals marching, weapons of cold iron borne in my fields, in my streets? You really think I would countenance such a thing?” A fell glittering came upon his face as he worked himself into fury. “You fool! If I sought to provoke my cousin into attacking my kingdom, this were the surest path!”

“Palpatine _will_ attack,” Cassian said. “Whether you provoke or pacify him. It’s only a matter of when. His policy is expansion, and always has been. There are no bonds, neither of kinship nor friendship, nor custom, that will hold him back from his desires. As you say yourself, my Lord, mortals are nothing to him, and he will have whatever he stretches out his hand to take. He is stretching it out as we speak, and he will have Kernow. You lie in his path. He will crush the mortal kingdoms of Albion; but to secure them, what can he do, but tighten his grip upon Elfland, his only gateway through?” He made a show of gesturing around the room, at the splendour and the beauty; and the king waited with bitten lips and angry eyes, as one who knows the speech is not over, and resents the rhetoric but must hear it out. _Good, good, keep him anxious, keep him reacting, not commanding. Keep the lead._ “You can give him free passage, and know you have signed your people over to vassalage; or you can bar his way, and face his armies. Would you not have allies, in such a time?”

“ _Mortal_ allies,” the king said; warning and cold. “Mortal soldiers, and the danger, the _insult,_ of cold iron wielded within my borders.” He pointed at Baze, at Jyn, angry and accusing. “This much I have borne, your friends bearing their weaponry here, before the eyes of all my court; this much I have ignored, in hope that you would yield to persuasion, Far-Traveller, in hope that you would show your hand honestly, and bargain fairly, as a true emissary, equal to equal. Yet still you bring me nothing more? This is too little. You have words of fear, but no proof; you have offers of alliance, but not the one I seek. This is _too little_.”

“It is the truth,” Cassian told him. “It must suffice.” He kept his voice and his face cold, even as his mind leaped at the strangeness of the king’s words. _A true emissary? Equal to equal? What in the name of heaven is he talking about?_

“I can show you so much more than this little _truth_ of yours!” Huon snarled. “And you can do so much more for me! - I know how much you conceal from me! It must _suffice_? You dare to tell me – you dare? - you _mortal_?” He broke off, and closed his eyes for a moment, and in their creased frown Cassian saw how hard he fought to master himself. He drew a deep breath before he opened them once more. “Come, let us deal fairly with one another. See, I will let your friends go free, in token of my goodwill. I could have wreaked my wrath upon them, could I not? Broken their puny bodies and taken their magic from them?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Chirrut smile, and Baze glanced at him and smiled too.

“But they may leave unharmed,” the king said, ignoring them. “All of them. I will grant them safe passage when they leave. Only for you and I, there is a bargain still to be struck. And so, you shall not leave.”

Jyn pulled forward again, and her voice was stiff with anger. “Enough threats. As if we needed your protection. We got here on our own without your say-so, and we’ll go home when we please, not at your bidding. _My Lord_.” She gripped Cassian’s hand, tight as ivy cutting into a tree. “And we’re not going without him,” she added “so you can forget that idea too.”

King Huon looked at her, long and hard, and suddenly he smiled and said “Mortal girl, I see you. The girl with the stardust eyes.” A shiver ran through Jyn’s hand, as though she were trembling, but she lifted her chin and did not reply. “Is it for you, then, that he holds himself back from me?” His voice was amused. “The women of my kingdom are fairer by far than you.”

Jyn said “Bet they’ve all got mouths full of jewels, too. Doesn’t make them fair, or friends.”

Her eyes were wide and grim; she knew the risk she was taking, with her belligerence. But suddenly there was a sound, in the distance but coming nearer, like a gale of voices, and feet scuffling, as though many people bore down upon the door and stood impatient there. _The court, the rest of the court; but why? Or is it more magic, another illusion to deceive us?_

Chirrut tilted his head towards the sound and said beaming “Here’s news for the ignorant.”

The king’s head whipped round, away from Jyn and Cassian. Through his teeth he hissed “What now, Old One Chirrut? What mean you? – and who call you ignorant?”

Chirrut smiled amiably; not at him, but past his ear, like someone misplacing a blessing. “The ignorant, lord King, are merely those who lack knowledge. Here come our other friends, and all of yours; bringing news, for any who needs it.”

The commotion outside was clear now; a solid hubbub, no illusion, but the real sound of a crowd. Jyn’s free hand slipped to the haft of her knife, but though he felt her tense, still she did not draw it. Her self-control, to keep the iron sheathed so long, moved and surprised him. It would be a threat no longer veiled but open, if she bared that blade here, even with the Old Ones’ magic to protect her.

_Someday, I must ask her how she came to know these two. Even for outlanders, they are strange indeed. How did these men who can shapeshift as easy as a breeze blowing come to be living among the horse-breeders of Bodmin?_

He gave her left hand a faint squeeze; trying to say, _hold fast, hold on, Jyn, my brave one. Hold fast, don’t give in._ After a moment she squeezed back.

The sound at the door was one of confusion, and agitation, not violence. Nonetheless he turned on instinct, to place himself between her and the doorway. There were footsteps, and the cawing of a wild bird; and a murmur of horror in elvish voices upraised, exclaiming and wondering and full of dread. And then suddenly came the pounding of a fist, beating heavy as anger, loud as iron. 

Chirrut raised his free hand and said cheerfully “Come in!” and the doors sprang open.

Twin figures stood there, silhouetted against the fairy-light from beyond and the bright crowds behind them. Two giants they seemed, grey and threatening and silent, towering above the elvish court. 

Then one of them pushed the other forward, and the illusion of uniformity was broken as the pushed one stumbled; Cassian saw that he was limping, with hands bound. The one doing the pushing strode in after. Head up, pale eyes glaring, and a bared sword in his hand. Not iron, but something still colder, silver-bright steel. On his shoulder sat a rook, watching with a clear black gaze, and pale talons that dug into the giant’s grey coat.

Behind him the elves of the court hovered, a huge crowd, half pressing forward to see and half hanging back, like children hoping to see a conjurer, or a corpse. 

Light ran along the sword blade like ice-water. The elves craned their necks again, and whispered, and hung back once more. The prisoner winced as the sword swung nearer to him.

“Move, you lump.” Kay Waylandson said. “Stop cringing and tell his majesty what you told me.”

He clapped his blacksmith’s hand on the stranger’s shoulder and pressed down, forcing him to his knees. “We found this one skulking and creeping in a currach, underneath that long bridge of yours. Tell him your mission and your name, you _spy_.”

“I owe no-one here my name.” The stranger drew himself upright as best he could, against the weight of that powerful hand. He glared, though his breathing was fast with alarm. “And I am no spy. Had I wished to scout out your land, Lord King, would I not have made myself more soothing to the eye? A simple illusion spell could have hidden me from all save the most perspicacious eyes. Yet here I stand as my own plain self. I have nothing to hide. Even a fool of a smith should be able to see that.” He gave a mocking bow in Kay’s direction; then a deeper one, to the king. “Your Majesty, I am your servant.”

The King ignored him; only of Kay did he ask “Who are you?”

“The son of Wayland Smith.” Kay flicked the tip of his sword in the spy’s direction. “And he wasn’t being quite so open and plain as all that when we found him sneaking about while we waited for our friends. He was paddling his little skiff on your lake, trying to find a way to get through the city walls. _No spy_ indeed. I’ve seen their tricks before. My mother was one of his people.”

Jyn gasped. “Not half-elven,” she breathed. “Half Formorian!”

“Just so,” Kay said coolly. “And half-human. It’s a useful mixture. I can do _everything_.”

He lifted the sword as though to swing and cut down, but instead drew the edge of the blade across his own palm. Holding up his hand he showed them the skin; for a moment only he bled, and then the cut fused, and left his hand unmarked. 

He lowered the tip of the sword and sliced a line across the paving, towards the spy’s right knee. A dark streak followed the steel, like a scorch mark into the marble; and it did not fade, but burned hot. The spy flinched.

“My friend,” Cassian said hastily “what are you doing?”

“Helping you, of course. The others were taking a long time of it. Now, _you_ ,” Kay shoved at the kneeling Formorian again “talk, if you know what’s good for you!”

“I’m a captive already,” the other grumbled. “There’s no call to keep threatening me so. I’ve been trying to tell you” – he grunted as the grip on his shoulder tightened, and tried to twist free, with an expression of distaste, and a fearful glance at the sword blade, still so close to his flesh. “Ill-mannered half-breed, give over! Very well, very well” – as the sword twitched still nearer, and the rook raised its wings with a nervy cackle – “I’ll talk, I’ll talk! I _came_ here to talk, as I’ve been trying to tell you, you heavy-handed brute.”

“Yes,” King Huon breathed. “You will speak, stranger. Spy.”

“Your majesty. I am no spy. I have come to offer myself to you, to serve you however you see fit.”

A ghost of a smile crossed the king’s face, and to Cassian he said “Indeed. Another offer of service, so soon after the first. Perhaps from one who will deal honestly, this time. What can you bring me, then, in pledge of your faith, He-who-is-not-a-spy?”

“A warning,” the spy said bluntly. The King’s gaze turned to ice. Quickly the Formorian bowed his head, the image of contrition. “Forgive me, my Lord. I know how unwelcome this news must be. But though the Emperor speaks you fair for now, you need to know, it is only until he can remove you. Already the Sidhe of Erin and the Korrigann of Breizh pay him tribute and bend the knee, and the gates of their lands are opened for him. When he decides to strike, you’ll find no allies there. And he will strike soon.”

“Bah, this is just more of the same. Mere lick-spittle fear-mongering.” King Huon’s eyes narrowed. “Why should I trust you, spy, any more than I do Master Far-Traveller here? It seems to me I have much to lose and little to gain, taking the word of a turncoat.”

“I am a turncoat, it’s true. I stand here in betrayal of my own kind, in violation of every oath I’ve sworn. Every oath save one.” For a moment the stranger’s voice quavered, and he shook his head and looked away. Kay’s grip tightened, pulling him back to face the King. He drew a hoarse breath. “Very well, very well… Yes, I’m a turncoat, but I would turn a thousand times over. I have seen deeds, and I have done deeds, and I am polluted forever by them. I saw the sun rise over the Rock of Cashel, and the blood of innocents uncounted was on my hands. Not just humankind, but all the races of Erin, mortals and fae, goblin and giant and High Sidhe, had held that siege against us, and fallen at our hands. I slew them all, indiscriminate, in the dark of the moon. Even the kindred of my lover lay there, dead at my hand. How could I not turn, who have done such things? For these crimes I must atone.”

“Who is this lover?” the King demanded. “An Irish mortal, and you? This is a likely tale.”

“An Irish giant, of the race of the O’Relyeas. I will not utter his name to you. It is not mine to give.”

Like one reassured by what he hears, Kay loosened his grasp at last. With a twist of his shoulder the Formorian shook him off. He lurched unsteadily to his feet and stood blinking back tears. There was a sudden frail decision in his voice as he said “Sire, I will give you my own name instead, in token of my truth. It is Kallus.” From the press of elves at the door came gasps, and a whispering, and Kallus smiled bitterly. “There now, if I break my bond with you, you may judge me as you see fit, and the even least of your courtiers can destroy me.”

“And will, I am sure.” The King gave his sapphire smile. “My people are loyal.” He extended one hand, a finger like a lance, flicking at Kallus, though it was to Cassian that he spoke. “So, Far-Traveller, here’s confirmation of your words. How convenient for you. But this is no shape-shifting Old One, to give his name and walk free. It seems I must believe him. Why, it’s almost as though you _had the gift of prophecy_! Tell me” – he leaned forward, his smile glaring into poison – “is it a common power among your people? Perhaps I will keep you indeed, then, and bind you to me, to be my servitor forevermore, and prophesy for me! Do not stare and blanch as though this were a shock to you! You could have brought me an ally from the far side of the world; but you will not serve your true master, nor bring him to me, and all you’ve done is bleat of some mortal Lord of Kernow. Yes, I think I shall keep you after all. A slave with the Second Sight will be a fine thing to have!”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, events take a turn sideways in this chapter, and things move further from SW canon and deeper into the realm of myth and legend as we finally begin to learn what the Elvenking thinks Cassian is really up to.

__

_Second Sight?_ Cassian gaped, blindsided, reeling, and for a moment he choked on words that were nothing, not even air, not even thought. 

_The Second Sight, the gift of prophecy? But I have no magic in me._

_And what does he mean by **the far side of the world**?_ _My true master? This is insane._

“I’m not” he said weakly, and the words caught in his throat so that he gasped and could not go on. “I’m _not_ ” -

He was struggling, and Jyn seeing it stepped forward angry-eyed, and put herself between him and Huon. “He’s no slave of yours, Sire,” she said plainly. “Elf-bread or no.” Her hand was on the haft of her knife again. “I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise.”

Baze and Chirrut both moved, silently taking up position to either side of her and Cassian. Kay too, crossing in two long strides to join them. The rook fluttered the few feet to settle on Jyn’s shoulder now, and gave a defiant caw at the King. Shoulder to shoulder they stood, ready to defend him. Standing not against the idea of being a seer, but the tell-tale word _slave_.

Through a dry mouth he choked “Please don’t…” – but the King’s attention had already shifted, as though their courage wasn’t even a distraction. 

“You, Shine, come here to me,” the King said, and snapped his fingers at the gathering by the door. “You, Appleblossom, Watchful, all of you who have attended the Far-Traveller here. Have you kept guard over him as I bade you?”

The three elves came cautiously forward, into the room, casting sidelong glances at Kay and Kallus, and the bared sword that Kay still held between them like a warning.

“We have, my Lord,” Lord Shine said warily.

“Has he sought in any way to leave us, or to undo his choice to come here?”

“He has not, my Lord.”

“And he has eaten of our food each day, and drunk of our wine?”

There was a pause, and the elf-lords and ladies looked at one another in doubt. Finally Lady Appleblossom said “No, my Lord.”

“ _No?_ ”

“Not since he came here, my Lord.”

Jyn’s head jerked round, and she was frowning at him. Cassian caught his breath and found words at last; managed to murmur “I haven’t been hungry.”

“For a night and a day?” she hissed back, and despite everything, trapped in Elfland and surrounded by people who spoke in riddles, still he had to smile at the angry concern in her voice. “Bloody hell, you know that’s not healthy.”

“It’s been many days, to me. I thought it must be the way of things here.” No-one had offered him food and drink, and he hadn’t thought to ask for them. Neither hunger nor thirst had touched him in the Invisible Land.

King Huon was frowning; at the two of them, and at the world in general, back in his usual sour temper once again. “Has he spoken with anyone from outside the Palace?”

“No, my Lord.”

“Has he used the mirror I gave you? Bring it to me at once!”

And there was another pause, longer and stiller than the first, before Lady Watchful spoke. “My Lord, the mirror you gave us, we gave to the Lord Far-Traveller, as you bade us do. But when it returned it was smoked. It bears no image now.”

“Smoked?” The king snarled, baring his teeth. The sapphire in his mouth glared dully for a second. His hands gripped hard on the arms of his seat. 

“As by a dragon’s breath, my Lord.” Lady Watchful bowed. “Forgive us, sire, we have failed you.”

But the king was already waving the three of them away dismissively. “Go, go, leave me. I will not avenge myself. This magic was beyond you.”

 _But I have no magic,_ Cassian thought. _I am a common mortal man, nothing more. Dragon’s breath? The mirror they gave me?_

It made no sense at all. Nothing had done, truly, since he first came. 

Yet he felt as he had done all those weeks (or hours? Years?) ago, when he stood with the king on the precipice, and beheld the strange mountains and the forested valley below.

Something unknown, that somehow he had always known.

What was it, that Huon had hinted at so many times? An unseen truth, a true master who was not Bail of Cornwall, nor the High King in Avalon? A people and a place that were familiar yet nameless to him.

His heart trembled sickly in his breast. Giddy and afraid, he reached for Jyn’s hand again. It was like an instinct, to touch her, feel her solid and undaunted by his side...

Her fingers curled into his and gripped on, strong with defiance.

_We two were foundlings, and thought ourselves lost from childhood, no way to know our true homes. But maybe there’s a truth to be found, for me._

Baze and Chirrut were both grinning openly at the King’s discomfiture, and Chirrut said merrily “As I told you, here is knowledge.”

“Knowledge for the ignorant,” Baze echoed, nodding.

King Huon breathed heavily, and averted his eyes from them.

He fixed Cassian instead, with a gaze as bitter as the north wind. “Far-Traveller, you’ve played me false. I offered a fair exchange, my alliance for yours.” Cassian shook his head, bewildered at the gap between this claim and everything he’d heard; but the king went on regardless. “You could have traded justly, but you have withheld yourself from me.”

“No, my Lord, I swear” –

“Liar! I wondered at first if you were indeed as innocent as you claimed. **_I_** knew what you were, from the first moment I beheld you, yet you seemed ignorant of your own truth, and I thought you honest. But for mortals, to taste the food of Elfland is to crave it evermore. And you have not sought another bite, another drop, since you came among us. How can this be? Even the mirror could not catch you, which is as strong a magic as any I have. You have lied to me from the first, and you are lying now! Your true master is no Cornish lord. You serve the Great Spirits of your birthland, and are under their protection! _You are a liar_!” 

He was spitting out words, and frost crystals swirled around his head in a gathering wind. 

Cassian said “I am no liar, my Lord. Not to you or any here.” His breath came in white clouds. “I have dealt honestly. I have no gift of magic and no hidden master.” He stood resolute, since he could do nothing else. But his mind stared at the enormity of what had just been spoken. The spirits of his birthland?

“Long have I sought to meet with the other fae kings, with rulers of the Invisible Lands across the wide world and sundering sea.” Behind Huon the walls flared again through wild storms of colour, blue and green and scarlet. “Many they are,” he said angrily “and mighty! The Lords of the Cold Isles and the Northern Forests, the Great Plains and the Burning Sands! And from your home, the Lords of the Smoking Mountain and the Burning Mirror! Do you think me such a fool as not to recognise a mortal of their demesne?” The king was pointing at him accusingly. His fingernails were like blades of pearl. His hand shook with rage. “You could bring us together if you chose to, and that would be an alliance indeed! My ice and their fire! – yes, that might serve to hold even my cousin in check! But no, you offer only a paltry gathering of Cornishmen, and the humiliation of opening my gates to a mortal army. Liar and coward I call you, and foresworn to all!”

“What in the name of hell is he talking about?” Jyn said to the room at large. “This is nonsense. Cassian serves the Duke of Cornwall!” Next moment her face went white as she realised. The rook flew up cawing as she whirled about, and she gasped out “No – no, I – that’s not his real name” –

It was too late; yet instead of horror he felt only the relief of a weight lifted. He tugged her hand, pulling her round, and drew close as she looked up at him with eyes wide in distress.

“What have I done?” she whispered. “I was angry, I didn’t _think_ – oh God, what have I done?”

“Shh, my dear. It’s done now. This is only what I was prepared for from the first. I’m ready, I have always been ready. Let be.”

He put his arm round her shoulders and she leaned in to him with a single muffled sob. “I’ve betrayed you.”

Cassian shook his head “There’s more at play here than we know.” _The Smoking Mountain, the Burning Mirror; I know these names, I have always known them._ “It would seem that _I_ am more than we know. Let us see what comes next.”

She looked up, and he felt her trembling. In the snowy light her eyes shone.

He bent his head, as he had not dared to do on the dancing green at Castle Dore, and kissed her on the lips. “I’m not leaving you just yet, dear heart, dear Stardust.”

“We shall see about that,” said the king bitterly.

He thrust one hand forward, and his cloak was flung out with the motion of his arm. It swung between them, blizzard-white and blinding, and struck Cassian with the force of a gale; and like a gale it tore Jyn from his embrace. He cried out, but the snow-white fabric smothered his voice and he was knocked from his feet, staggering and falling, swept away.

There was a storm wind, vast and howling, and a roaring like a white-out blizzard, so that he huddled into himself, and wrapped his arms over his head. His body struck hard rock and he fell to his knees with a cry of pain. It seemed even his breath was being snatched from his lungs; the snow whirled into his very being, the hurricane tore him apart as it roared.

And then, silence.

Silence, and then in the distance, a bird called.

The ground beneath him was cold as ice, but all around, a dry heat, and a scent of hot dust that he remembered in his bones.

Cassian opened his eyes, and raised his head.

He knelt at the feet of King Huon, alone, on the bare mountainside. Around them the rock was scattered with snow, reflecting back brilliant sunlight for a few scanty feet before it was overwhelmed, and then there was nothing but a smear of meltwater on the red, red rock.

“Now, _Cassian_ ,” the Elvenking said “we will talk of alliances. And you will show me the gateways of this land, and open the unseen roads of your _true_ masters.”

Cassian picked himself up. The knees of his breeches were torn where he’d fallen, and he could feel a trickle of blood. He looked round, at the bright mountains, the hard blue sky.

_Here again. So this is where he thinks I come from. But as for all this nonsense about my true masters…_

_I have no more patience with this king and his fantasies._

Bitterly he said “That’s not going to be easy.”

The king smiled and frowned at once, a poisonous look, close to hate. “You cannot deny me, now I possess your name. Take me to your master, Cassian.”

“He’s rather a long way away,” Cassian said. “In Cornwall. As I keep telling you.”

The mountains, the heat, the distant valleys, all caught at his heart, and were precious, a haunting he could not name, a treasure evanescent as dreams. But precious too was the world he knew, and the home he’d been raised in, when all this was long lost to him. 

_Perhaps it’s true that I was born here, in this beautiful heat, this vast dry land; but I have made my own home, already, and it is not here._

He pictured Jyn’s face, and the sorrow and the grit of her, and the flare of hope unmistakable in her eyes when they had kissed. Saw Kay staring down in amused irritation at the folly of humans. Saw loyal friends and longed-for love, and around them the green rivers and misty fields of Kernow. 

The Elvenking would take all of that from him now, and would not even grant him the fair exchange he’d offered from the start. And all because that suspicious heart could see nothing but calculation within calculation, and twist upon twist, and secrets meanly held.

He looked up at the bone-white face before him, and made his choice.

_The truth. All I have told from the start, and all I will tell to the end, is the truth. And you can go to hell if it doesn’t suit your purpose._

“I do know this place, it’s true. But I do not know why, or how that can be. I have no name to give it. When you spoke those words – Smoking Mountain, Burning Mirror – yes, those too, I recognised. But I don’t know how. You think me subtle beyond my powers, King Huon.” He held his empty hands out wide, a shrug of despair that took in all the wide glittering range of the mountains, and the huge sky. “You show me ghosts of a past I’ve lost, and then call me a liar, because I don’t respond to your cunning with my own. But I cannot.” All of his years of spying and caution, every deed he’d done in the dark, had all been for a truthful purpose. Never for the joy of it. His soul rebelled at the king’s enmity, so undeserved, and “I am an honest man, my Lord!” he said.

The strange birds called in the valleys around them. Blood trickled over his skin, and ran down his leg into his boot. When he looked down, there were two crimson marks in the snow, and the cold white thawed around them, so that his blood settled on the bedrock.

The king was staring; then he shook his head, amused. “You give even your woman a false name, and then say you are not cunning?” He snorted, with hot scorn in his cold eyes.

“It _is_ my name,” Cassian said. “And she’s not my woman. Would that she were.”

“Hah! Mouth upon mouth is mortals’ kiss. What else can she be but yours?”

“She’s the one I would choose, if I were free.” Again Cassian spread his hands in frustration. “But I’m not free – surely I am not! I ate the food of Elfland, I danced with your people, I went with them willingly. I knew myself bound by that. No mortal can do such things and walk away after. It was my duty, and I did it, gladly; it was a sacrifice freely given. I asked only for the chance to forge a treaty against our common enemy. I’ve been truthful with you always and I don’t understand what is happening now, I am no sorcerer, I am no seer, I am no liar! I don’t know why your magic doesn’t hold me, my Lord, but it is no doing of mine!”

“If this is not done by your power,” the king said “then what use are you to me?”

He did not wait for an answer, but raised his hands, and sapphire flames bloomed between his fingers, and danced like lightning between heaven and earth. Then gathered the fire into a ball and threw it, casual as a child at play; and it struck Cassian in the breast.

He closed his eyes, and felt the fire run into him. The fields of home came to him again, and the mystery of this other home, lost and taken from his memory, this land whose name he would never know now; and he remembered Jyn’s eyes, and the hope of the people of the mortal world, the ones for whom he had given everything. He knew he would have done the same, even now, knowing the end. 

It would have to be enough.

The flame pierced his heart, but he would not allow the king to see him die in fear, and he opened his eyes again.

The mountains stood red and gold all around. The fire roared.

From the sky came a sound like thunder, and it came down, in a huge whirling and tumult, of wings and green glittering light, that scattered like beams thrown by a turning mirror; and the thunder and the light came between him and the king, and broke the lancing blue flames so that they fell as tinder.

Cassian dropped to his knees again, breathless and terrified. But the fire had gone.

Fragments like shards of ice-crystal fell to the ground around him, and a voice spoke, that was like the crash of all universes meeting; but he did not know the words.

In front of him, with one hand still outstretched in protection, stood a being taller even than the Elvenking. Bright shifting feathers sprang from mighty shoulders, and from his head; they seemed sometimes wings, sometimes a cloak, and the breeze that lifted it too. His skin was blood red, ash black, and umber, and gold, whether by paint or the natural colour of his skin it was impossible to say, but from out of this wild colour a pair of eyes looked down at Cassian, that were dark and wise and calculating. All of his clothing was of jade, and feathers, and spotted skins and gold; even the straps of his sandals were golden, and he bore on his breast a great disc of polished black stone, smoother than glass.

The thunder spoke with him, out of the clear sky.

Cassian looked at the Elvenking, and saw his bitterness and his cunning, and the fear that lay under them, and for the first time he felt pity. But in the eyes of the newcomer he saw only necessity. He bowed his head and prayed, as around him the sound of their two mighty voices came like the roar of storm winds. The storm howled and blew ever stronger; and then suddenly, once more there was silence.

When he raised his head this time, there was no sign of either figure. Both the Elvenking with his bitter eyes, and the giant with his winged cloak and mirrored breastplate, had vanished. Only the distant birds called, singing unafraid out of the fringe of trees far below.

The snow had all melted, leaving nothing save a stain of blood on the land.

He waited till his breath was calm again, and the shaking of his limbs had stopped, and then slowly and carefully he rose to his feet, and looked around. 

_Please, let there be some sign of human life. Some hope of a way out. Let there be water, or a pathway…_

There was nothing.

King Huon had brought him here, for some unknowable purpose of his own, and then on a whim had left him. Or had been taken. Maybe the winged being was even now battling him, or enslaving the elf-Lord with some magic of his own. The binder, bound; the would-be trickster beaten at his own cunning. And Cassian, a man of no importance to either of them, left on a mountainside. Dumped like a bag of rags.

It was getting hotter, and his throat was dry. For the first time since he’d come to Elfland, he began to feel thirst. For a brief moment it was almost comforting. His body was his own again.

To die of thirst and the sun’s heat wasn’t quite the end he’d anticipated for himself. There were no hidden knives here, and no poisoned cups. Those he had expected; the man who serves as a spy doesn’t often die in his bed. But far from home, yes, that much at least he had anticipated.

He wondered if there was any hope now, for a treaty between the elves and Duke Bail. But couldn’t see any way that he would ever know.

Well, there was nothing to be done about any of it, now. He was here, for better or worse; he could lie down on the bare stone and wait for death, or he could start walking, and see where he came to. Perversely, it seemed easier to make the greater effort, and do the latter. 

He was sweating hard inside his old leather coat. He shrugged it off and held it up over his head. Looking around he picked a direction with the sun at his back, and began to walk.


	8. Chapter 8

Jyn stood bereft, in the cold space where Cassian had been. One moment in her arms; his lips on hers; forgiveness in his eyes, forgiveness and _love_ , and every hope she’d ever cherished for the two of them made real and warm and living, right there, in her arms… 

Then the next moment, he was gone. Snatched by that – that –

A monster, another monster, a brute all in white, like the worst first nightmare of her childhood, another beast taking the good and ripping them out of this world, betraying everything, hurting everyone she loved, and her heart screamed, no, _no, **no**_!

A beast dressed in white, and a troop of grey Formorians with black weapons held high. Her mother, her father…

Darkest of memories, bursting out of the void inside, where they had lain, locked and hidden, all this time. Then vanishing again before she could grasp their meaning.

A monster in white had stolen Cassian from her. 

He had called her Stardust. That one precious word was like a torch, and she clung to its light. She saw herself again, miserable child standing alone on the moors, saying _Hello_ to the bear that strode over to her, because when all the world is alien and dark, what’s one more madness in the face of death? _Hello, I’m called Stardust, please don’t eat me_. And the bear had turned into a huge, kind man, and held out his hand, and said _Little sister, will you let me help_?

She saw herself meeting Cassian for the first time, two skinny lonely children, and they were friends because who else could they run with, the foundlings, the nobodies who couldn’t even say who their parents were or where they had been born? 

She’d trusted him, and told him her one memory. _I’m Stardust, my name is Jyn but I know I was called Stardust. I just don’t remember why._

 _I know I lived in the sunlight_ , he’d told her. _More sunlight than I have ever seen here; a place that was always bright, even when it was cold. I just don’t remember where it was._

A strangled shout broke from her lips, and she turned on Kay and his prisoner. “Where has that bastard taken him?”

“How should I know?” Kallus said.

“Because – because – I remember, it was your kind, your people, them and a bastard in white, who took my family! They took them and killed them and I don’t know why or how or anything! But there were Formorians there!” She was shaking, she could almost have started waving her fists, even punched him in the face, she was so angry, and he stood blinking down at her in bemusement. 

At his side Kay said near-gently “You do realise it wasn’t him, don’t you? Not _this_ Formorian?”

“Yes,” Jyn managed to say after a moment. She breathed heavily, made her feet step away from the baffled Kallus. “Yes, it wasn’t you. Or you, Kay. I do know that. It all – it just all came back. When Cassian called me Stardust.”

“Yes,” Kallus said “I noticed that too. It’s curious, I’m sure I’ve heard that word somewhere else lately.”

Which set the threads of her heart shaking still more strongly. She couldn’t face the thoughts, the fears and memories and the hope, the agony of hope, that they conjured. She turned away from him.

“Where did they go?” she asked the elves the king had called for. “Your king, my friend, where did he take my friend?”

“The King’s ways are not known to us,” said the taller of the two elf ladies reprovingly. “He is the wisest of us, we place our faith in him.”

“More fools you, then!” Kallus exclaimed. “He didn’t take a word I said seriously!” His voice was taut with an angry disgust. “I’ve risked my life to come here and all I get is to be ignored. I didn’t make any of this up, you know.” 

He held up his bound hands to Kay. “Set me free, surely you know I’m no threat to anyone here.”

“No,” the smith said with barely a glance. “Not just yet.”

“I cannot be caught here when the attack comes! I must be long gone, or lose my head.”

“Should have thought of that sooner,” Jyn told him. And was ashamed of herself next moment. “I’m sorry, that was unkind of me. Kay, are you sure you can’t cut him free? He did confirm Cassian’s message.”

“Please,” one of the elf ladies said “set free our cousin of Formoria. He means no harm here.” She made a gracious gesture, that was somehow both grand and yet vague. “There’s no danger here, see, all is well.”

“The King will return to us and all will be well,” the blue-faced elf-lord added, and the two of them nodded at one another, wise as a pair of starlings twittering on a roof.

“You’re all insane,” Kallus said. “No danger? Have _any_ of you heard what I’ve been saying?”

“They’re elves,” Baze told him. “They’re like this all the time. No wonder that one ended up their king. Only one of them with half a mind or a crumb of strategy.”

“King Huon is a strong lord,” Chirrut said “but he who rules the unwise will struggle to rule wisely.”

The gathering at the doorway had already begun to drift away. Jyn stared in disbelief.

“No wonder Palpatine of Formoria planned to attack them first,” Kay said sourly. “What could be easier than to secure a path through these halls, and these defenders? No wonder Huon hesitated to accept the Cornish offer. A whole army of mortals, seeing what this place is, what it has become, under his leadership? A people of butterflies and cobwebs, pah! Pretty faces and silks, and the minds of infants!”

“That reminds me, when did you last see Lord Cobweb, my dear?” the blue-faced elf asked the tall one as they wandered towards the door. “Surely the king’s brother will dance with us again soon.”

“Lord Cobweb has his own dancing party, didn’t you know? Far away, on the border with Formoria, he and his companions have gone, to dance and feast and make festival with our cousins of the night.” 

“Indeed, I’m sorry to miss the merriment.” They were arm in arm; they drifted out of the throne room, blithe in their gossiping.

Kallus muttered darkly under his breath. The other elf-lady looked round for a moment, frowning as though reminded of something that troubled her; then with a shake of her head she too turned to go. “He’s as good as dead then, your Lord Cobweb,” Kallus said to her back; and she hesitated once more, and then walked on. “Aren’t any of you even _interested_?” He was shouting uselessly; his face had gone pale, the iron-grey skin wan with misery. “I can’t believe I’ve risked my bloody life for this lot! Listen to me!” But they were gone. He stood shouting after the last few retreating figures. “Listen to me! The invasion will start any day! Any _hour_ , it might be - Light alone knows how the shift of time works here - it could be starting _right now_ and you’re faffing about talking about dancing parties!”

“If the invasion is starting now,” Baze said “then we’re leaving now.”

“Not without Cassian,” Jyn said stubbornly.

“Our friend is very far away from here,” Chirrut said. “If we should leave this place, we can seek him the better, and go where he will go.”

“Which is where?” Jyn demanded.

“Ah, for that question I have no answer. His path goes too high for me. But it will bring him home.” He was confidently serene, smiling sidelong at her. “We need only be where he comes.”

“The place is a maze,” Kay pointed out “and Cassian said it changes constantly. The rooms we came in through won’t be there anymore. I calculate we’ll lose our way within five minutes of setting off.” He shook his prisoner lightly. “You, Kallus, how did you navigate here?”

“Same as you, I imagine,” Kallus said sourly. “Dead reckoning.”

Back on Jyn’s shoulder again, Bodhi gave a tiny caw, that rattled into nervous laughter, and spoke. “No – it was – it was me, guiding them. I’m a – I used to be a pilot.”

Kallus’ pallid eyes had fixed on him, wide with alarm. “You talk?” And to Jyn in clear disbelief “Did I really hear it say? -”

“Yes.” She could almost feel sorry for him; he knew so much of his own world, yet of this one, even less than she.

“Of course I can talk!” Bodhi said indignantly. “I’m not a bird, I’m a Jedhan! Not a – not an Old One like our friends here but I’m learning.” He fluttered down; even as he landed on the ground his form began to transform. “Yes – still learning – bother -” one arm was fully human, the other still a feathered arc that flapped, trying to shake itself into change. He looked back at Jyn with a sheepish kind of mirth in his bright eyes, and said “Yes, I know, still learning!”

“Calmly now; nearly there, little brother,” Baze said to him.

“Oh! – yes – calm, yes.” Bodhi beat the errant wing again. “Calm… Oh, come on!”

Kallus was still gaping. Kay said, not quite unkindly “This is what they do. Jedhans. They have the skill of shapeshifting. Why do you think the Empire has its eyes on the mortal East, and sends troops there to ask for tribute? It’s not just for love of a few pretty desert stones. They’ve sacked Jedha once already; you know the destruction they can bring if we don’t stop them.”

“We have to stop them,” Bodhi said, slightly out of breath now, and still shaking his arm. The last of the feathers melted into the change, and became his human hand, thin and long-fingered and strong. He dusted his coat down, looking embarrassedly anywhere but at his companions.

Jyn took a step nearer, to bring herself back into his sightlines. “It’s good to see you, brother.”

She knew how much he hated showing his human form, much less showing the transformations that were still so anxious, so often ill-controlled, for him. But now he looked at her shyly and smiling, and she realised, he didn’t mind it so much; he had done it _for her_. 

“Hey, hullo,” he said. “Do I get a hug, then?”

They embraced. Jyn’s heart flooded with warmth. Yes, her first family, those who bore her in love and raised her in the sun, they’d died and been taken away, by a monster in white, by grey troops who dragged them mute and pale and dead – but the ones who had found her, the family she had found, they would stick by her no matter what.

“Thank you,” she told him.

“Shall we go?” Kay asked. “Pilot or no, it’s still a labyrinth, don’t forget. We need to get moving.”

Bodhi gave Jyn a last quick squeeze, with a breath of laughter in her ear that carried the echo of the rook’s call. “Right, ha. Pilot, yes.” He disengaged himself, grinned at her; looked around the empty throne room. “Just need to find the right door.”

“You’ve only got two to choose from,” Jyn said, glancing between them. The way the elves had left, and a modest arch behind the dais. The way they’d come in had been closed up behind them; she’d misliked the sight. Liked it even less now, with so narrow a range of options.

But Chirrut was moving; walking firmly towards a blank wall, and saying “I feel it, little brother. It’s here” – and there in front of him as he reached out was a new doorway, with a high carved frame and a sill of white marble. A door where none had been before. “Ah, I thought as much. So that’s how it works.” He patted the stone tracery.

**_Labyrinth_ ** _? I can see that isn’t the half of it. Thank the Gods I’m not alone here._

“You found it!” Bodhi sprang forward, gleeful. “Here, now, let me feel the way – there’s a passage – yes, here it is – and there’ll be another door, and stairs in a while, yes…” He was already put of sight, hurrying down the corridor that seemed to be building itself out of air around him. “Come on, this way!”

They hurried after him; Chirrut and Baze in the lead, then Jyn, and behind her the grumbling Kallus, and Kay keeping watch on them all from the rear. Bodhi was far ahead now, fleet-footed and eager, his voice echoing back. “This way – ignore the turnings there – and that one!” His footsteps beat on stone-paved floors, vanishing down the corridor. The vaporous walls solidified and strengthened in his wake, though their stones were stark now, and bare, all colour gone.

It certainly wasn’t the way they had come, nor was it the veiled passage the elves had woven, that led from Cassian’s chamber. But there was nothing for it but to follow him. Jyn ran to keep up.

She reached the end of the passageway and almost ran into Baze’s broad back. Bodhi stood beneath the arch of another door, hopping from one foot to the other in a quiver of nerves. “This is it, here we are, the stairway. Down here!”

Through the plain squared-off arch she could see a flight of steps. Pale brown stone; there were no carvings, no marble, no pointed windows or tracery. But the walls gleamed dully, as though with an inner light, and spiralled down into the depths. 

“Come on!” Bodhi said again, and darted off once more, straight out of sight down the staircase.

“This isn’t the way we came in!” protested Kallus, panting.

“Of course not!” Bodhi’s voice rang back from below. “It’s the way _out_!”

She reminded herself _He’s a pilot, his work is to guide things. Ships, people, who knows what else?_

Bodhi had never had Chirrut’s skill in magic, but he was not without powers of his own. She’d seen him guide livestock home through deep snow, flying ahead of them, calling constantly as the horses and cattle laboured after his voice. _He knows this art._ _Trust him._

Chirrut and Baze had already set foot on the stairs. She followed.

“Is he always like this?” Kallus asked sourly behind her. “So bloody _keen?”_

“No,” Chirrut said, at his most blithe. “Isn’t it wonderful to hear?!”

“Huh. If you say so.”

There was enough light that when she glanced back, she could see the faint grin on Kay’s face. He held Kallus by the should once again, half-steering, half-pushing. “You’ll get used to them,” he said. “Humans aren’t like your people. No two souls are alike, and most of them don’t even want to be.”

“We’re your people too,” Kallus retorted.

“Only my mother’s. And they rejected her.”

They tramped downward, spiral upon spiral, into the ghostly dim glow. The stairway had narrowed, to the point they must go in single file. Jyn drew one of her knives. The blade glinted in the strange light.

“Can’t say I mind it that much, living with this lot,” Kay went on after a moment. “The Empire was dull. Mortals are much more interesting.”

“If the Formorian army comes marching through here you’ll wish for dull.”

“We’d better stop them then,” Kay said. “Get a move on now.” He patted the other again, not too roughly.

“This way, keep going!” came echoing up from below as the staircase wound on, endlessly twining back on itself. 

Just as she had begun to think they were descending into the heart of the world, and would never reach daylight again, abruptly the stairs ended. There was yet another doorway, framed by blocks even plainer and more massive than the last, and through it she could see a path. It ran out to either side of the door, at the foot of the city walls, stretching featureless as far as the eye could see. Beyond lay only the shining black water, and all the gleaming lanterns reflected, motionless and unchanged. It was as though mere seconds had passed since they arrived.

Bodhi looked to left and right, and set off at once to the left. A hundred yards ahead, as though his presence had summoned it back, the causeway appeared out of the darkness. Two boats were moored up beneath it.

Jyn threw a mistrustful glance at the walls as she hurried after.

There was no sign of any guards on the crosswalk or the gate, not even the desultory watchers they had slipped past when they arrived. The Elven city looked deserted, shining like a dropped pearl in the dark. No-one had made any attempt to stop them. 

_What Elvish nonsense is this? It’s too easy - we’re not supposed to be able simply to walk out of here!_

“That’s my row-boat,” Kallus said, still out of breath behind her. “Could we?” -

“No,” Bodhi said firmly, before he’d even finished the question. “Ours is bigger.”

But as they hurried along the embankment towards the beginning of the causeway, suddenly a cry went up from the walls above. Jyn spun to face the sound ( _I knew it, I knew it, a trap, it’s a trap!)._ Her knife was already drawn, and now she pulled out the club from her belt as well. Around her the others too had leapt to defend themselves; Baze’s great axe and Kay’s sword flashed to either flank. With a caw of alarm Bodhi flickered into bird form again.

Kallus was cursing. “For the love of night, cut me loose! I can fight too!”

“Can you use a bow?” Chirrut asked mildly. He was holding his long-staff up, ready to strike, but he shrugged the long bow from his shoulder and held it out.

“Yes, I can shoot, yes! Cut me loose!”

At a flick of Chirrut’s free hand the ropes fell from Kallus’ wrists. Kay muttered grumpily under his breath as the Formorian grabbed the bow and the sheaf of arrows, and nocked an arrow to the string. He spun round, taking aim at the city walls.

But the only sound from above was wailing, of voices high and despairing. They clamoured, fearful in the fearful air, and then at last there were words; “Grey ships! Ships in the west!”

Jyn whirled to look out across the water. Into the west, into the dark. But it was no longer darkness. There was a glow burning from the horizon, no light of sunset, but greenish-white and harsh, uncanny as a death-fire; and stark against it the outline of masts and hulls stood out. Ships, indeed; tall battleships and broad-hulled siege vessels armed with mortars and ballistae. A fleet; a whole armada. Swiftly they came, rising over the silent lake.

The city gate creaked open as the wailing from within intensified, and Jyn saw the shorter of the two elf-ladies from the throne room stood there, wringing her hands and crying. “Travellers, your help! The king has left us! Our borders are breached and the king comes not!”

“Stop blabbing!” Kay snapped at her. “Call to arms, rally your troops!”

“But the king has left us! Without him we have nothing! – help us, help us, I beg you!”

“Oh, for the Gods’ good sakes, what the fuck?” Jyn marched over to the threshold of the gate. “Are you telling us you’re not able to defend yourselves without that snippy bitch of a king to lead you?”

“Help us!” the elf lady repeated, for all the world as if her helplessness was itself a full reply.

“Hell,” Jyn said. “Hell and damnation.”

“We need to go,” Kay told her.

“And leave them to fall?” Maddening creatures though the elves were, it seemed brutal to walk away and let them die. And this place was the only barrier between Palpatine’s ambition, and all the mortal lands of Albion.

Lady Watchful was weeping now, bright tears like pearls on her cheeks. Behind her other figures appeared, a mayhem of grief, elves sobbing and tearing their hair, falling to their knees in the shining streets.

“If we dawdle here much longer, we’ll be seen,” Kay snapped. “You really want to risk it, for a bunch of fae?” He hefted his long sword, two-handed, and glared down at Jyn, and at the wailing elves, and the grey ships on the skyline.

“It’s an idea,” Jyn said. “Seriously. If we draw the Formorians out we’d give this hopeless lot time to find their arms. And their fighting spirit, if they have any.” He glowered at her again but she ignored him. “You, Lady whatsit. Watchful. Can’t you rally your people? For God’s sake! Don’t just sit there until your city is sacked!”

“Without the king we’re doomed!” Lady Watchful lamented. “I will try, I will try, but no good can come of it!”

“You’d better be wrong about that. Arm yourself, woman!” 

“And close the fucking gates!” snarled Kallus from behind her. “Do you want let them march in? They’ll slaughter you like a herd of sheep!”

“No – no!” Lady Watchful was staring in horror at his words. “We must hold the city!”

“That’s right.” Chirrut’s voice was calm, encouraging. “Close the gates and arm yourselves, and stand firm. Bid those who cannot fight take refuge in the palace. Call for water and sand to be brought to put out fires.” The elf lady hung on his words, gulping back sobs; slowly she began to nod in agreement; roused herself with an effort and stood tall. Chirrut patted her arm reassuringly. "Go now, youngling, be safe and strong. Your people need a leader.”

Lady Watchful dashed the tears from her eyes. “Yes, Old One.”

Her shoulders were still shaking but like a child given clear instructions after chaos, she took hold of the huge gates and drew them shut behind her with an effort.

“Some leader _she’ll_ be,” Kallus muttered.

“Better than none,” Baze said, and Chirrut added “Even the sparrow can rule a nation of butterflies.”

“And if we don’t want to be squashed like a few more bloody butterflies,” Kay retorted “we need to move!”

Without waiting for a reply he set off along the causeway, with Bodhi flying ahead. Baze shrugged at the others and together they raced after him. Kallus protested just once, panting “What about the boat?” and was hushed by Baze saying “No luck in boats, my friend,” and what sounded like a friendly thump on the back that made him gasp. Then there was no more time or breath for speech, only haste and the knowledge of an enemy coming on them from the sea.

The wooden walkway echoed under their boots as they ran.


	9. Chapter 9

The heat was making Cassian’s head throb. His tongue was dry and his eyes were burning, and he knew he had begun to stumble. The rocky hillside was so hard, so rough, so exposed to the sun and the glancing, bleaching wind, and he was so tired, and thirsty beyond measure. He had lost track of how long he had been walking; minutes or hours, he could not tell, neither how long it had been, nor if it were still the time-dizziness of Elfland, or simply exhaustion. He had not eaten or drunk since the meadow, and the dancing, in the field below Castel Dore; how long ago that was, he had no way of knowing. It felt like a thousand years.

He just wanted it to stop. Stop the swaying, stop the heat and the burning thirst, stop being here; all of it.

But he knew that if he halted, there on the bare mountainside, with nothing around him but stone and scrub, he would surely die; and for all he longed to stop he had not yet reached the point where death seemed better than carrying on. 

He had to suppose that was a good sign. Not yet wanting to be dead.

He picked his way onward, heading down the mountainside over trackless stone and scree, barren and baking. The rocks around him were weathered, grey-brown and rust-brown, sometimes almost greenish, sometimes stained black as though by fire. The surface was broken up a little here and there; sometimes there were ridges and gullies where he must scramble down and up again; then a hundred yards further on his boots would be skidding on sheets of rock smooth and flat as a sea strand. He imagined centuries of wind, or long-gone floodwaters, scouring them down. Along the horizon the strange white peaks gleamed, and from one, smoke rose; but he did not think it was a settlement. Too far, too high, and far beyond his reach.

A little way ahead – he hoped it was just a little way, and not a delusion of the heat – the barren ground began to slant down, and as he continued to walk towards it unsteadily, somehow also it seemed to turn darker. He screwed his eyes up; blinked and saw it clear. There were trees there, and shade. He walked towards the shade, hoping, hearing his dry voice gasping, panting; desperate now hope was in sight. Shade and trees; which must mean, surely must mean, water; and water must mean life. If he could just find it.

There was a fringe of scrub, between him and the trees. Thorny plants, and tussocky twiggy contorted plants, and strange swollen stems that bore not one branch, but grew fat, festooned with garish orange flowers and spines as long as his thumb. Then thickets of stubby trees whose bark hung from them in papery red sheets. There was no path, not even the tracks of animals, but he pushed through, tearing his hands, his knees, his clothes; bleeding and frantic he pressed on towards the forest beyond. Shade. Water. There had to be water.

He could hear the singing birds, so close now. Close, but still not in sight. But with one last struggle he was there; he thrust past a final tangle of thorns and twisting undergrowth, and into the shade. Within a few more strides, there was green growth underfoot, lush and soft. A dozen steps more, and the air was cooler, and beginning to be humid. Cassian staggered downslope, almost dropping his coat; he stumbled to the nearest tree and leaned against it for support. Out of the sun, sheltered from the desiccating wind; he looked around him gasping with relief.

After the sun-baked wasteland above, it took his eyes some moments to adjust to the shade. There were dapples of light breaking through, striking the tree trunks and glossy foliage, confusing him with their dazzle. Further in, the gloom was rich and green and shadowed like evening. Still giddy with the heat, he forced himself to stay, patient though his nerves screamed against it, waiting till he could see enough to carry on. The sweet-voiced birds called, a trilling and jug-jug bubbling of different calls; and there was a hum of a thousand insects. The air was stickily warm after the dry hillside, and smelled of damp and a thick greenness.

At last he let go of the tree trunk; he tied the coat clumsily about his waist, and risked a first few careful steps, and began picking his way forward, deeper into the untrodden forest. 

When he glanced back after a few minutes, the mountainside was already lost to sight, screened by the dense foliage. Glints and gleams of sun broke through from above; they sparkled behind him like a dance of stars, so that he screwed up his eyes, trying to blink them back. 

The sparks ran on into the forest shade, still glittering and dancing; they swirled round him and scattered like living things, and gathered again, further ahead, in an undulating cloud that floated as if it could not decide which way to go.

Fireflies? - they had to be fireflies. Yet they looked very much like tiny stars, or like a cloud of stardust. They drifted towards him, and then back again, bobbing and shimmering in the air. Cassian stood blinking at them; and beyond them, suddenly, he heard a faint sound of water. Water falling on rocks. He took a step forward, and another.

The cloud of stars coalesced into a mass, and leapt away through the undergrowth with a crash. It seemed almost as though they had suddenly gained the form and density of some powerful creature that thrust its way through. Yet they were insects. They had to be insects.

In their wake, the dense understory was crumpled and crushed, almost a pathway. The heat must be fogging his mind. If the cloud were really some creature, something that size, powerful enough to beat out a trail like that, then he ought to turn and flee for his life. Not follow in its wake. 

But the water was that way.

Cassian stumbled downhill, through the rich forest growth, past strange trails of creeper and vine, huge leaves, and flowering plants that grew perched like cockades on the mossy limbs of each tree. His boots skidded on the trampled foliage and his knees ached from pounding downslope continually; his throat was dry with panting. 

The hidden animal crashed the way through in front of him, and the water sang, tantalising, closer all the time.

There was a brighter place ahead, more light coming through from above in a break in the trees; the sound of water was all around, and he ran a few last yards, on earth that was suddenly beaten and clear, down a rattling slope of rounded stones and crumbling silty soil, and onto the flat shingle of a riverbank. In front of him, the cloud of stars danced down to the water’s edge, and like some nightmare illusion resolved, they solidified, into the unmistakable form of a huge cat.

It turned, and looked at him with fierce golden eyes, unblinking. 

It was thickset and muscular, two feet or more at the shoulder and longer from nose to tip of tail than he was tall. Its pelt was the colour of three kinds of honey, splashed and spilled together into a glory of great rosetted spots. It opened its mouth and showed a dark red tongue, and rows of cream-coloured teeth. It was some ten feet away on the shingle spit, right at the verge of the river. 

If he ran now, he might get as far as the overgrown slope again before it caught up with him.

Cassian stood motionless. Sweat sticking his clothes to his skin, thirst cleaving his tongue to the roof of his mouth. Fear making his very breath shake.

The giant cat watched him awhile; then bowed its huge head, as though indicating the water to an idiot cub, and looked up at him again, and stepped back.

Carefully, its eyes never leaving him, it moved away, and waded through the shallows to the far side of the river. Bent its head and lapped at the clear water; and looked up at him once again.

He knew it was madness; the heat and the thirst like two monsters, dragging him to his doom in the jaws of a third. But he went forward, unsteady steps crunching and slithering on the shingle, and knelt in the shallows with a gasp of exhaustion. 

The cat lapped again at the water and fixed him once more with its unblinking gaze. He thought again of a mother cat teaching her kitten how to drink. His hands were shaking, but he sank them in the cold river water and cupped and scooped up a palmful, and drank.

And another; he drank, and drank, and almost forgot danger for a long moment, in the release of thirst satisfied, and heat relieved.

When at last he let himself look, the creature was still watching him.

The water stung all the cuts and scratches on his knees, his hands. His head was still aching from heat, and he was conscious of hunger now as well as thirst. Yet everything seemed fixed and certain, as it had not done for so long; all the world held pinned down, possessed, and guarded, in the gaze of the animal that stood before him.

He cupped another handful of water and raised it up, and let it trickle through his fingers like an offering. He had nothing else to give, save his life; yet the watching cat seemed not to want it. He said “Thank you, my Lord,” to it. The words sounded alien and sore. His tongue was still thick, and his lips had cracked from dryness. He bent his head to the water and drank again, face down, helpless; helpless, alive, and untouched.

He thought at first that he might fall, when he sought to stand. The creature watched over him silently as he dragged himself up again, and made his way back to the riverbank, and sank down shaking in the undergrowth.

He lay there for a time, letting himself rest and accepting his weakness and exhaustion. Closed his eyes sometimes; he could hear the big cat’s breathing, soft and undeniable, and beneath it the chuckle of the flowing river, and sweet ripples of birdsong above. The insects hummed; leaves rustled and tiny creatures chirruped and splashed, leaping into the water. Nothing had given an alarm call, not once since the cat appeared. But it was still there when he opened his eyes again. 

It moved forward, terrifyingly graceful in its power; crossed the water and came towards him. The thunder of his heart threatened to drown all the soft natural sounds of the forest; threatened to come screaming out of him, terror and the certainty of death as the creature sprang up the river bank and stood over him. There were droplets of water on its whiskers, and its muzzle was like the finest black velvet. Eyes the colour of polished jasper, starred and threaded with gold, and with golden lashes. Dark nostrils that exhaled a warm breath upon his face. He could not move; could not look away. The huge eyes had him pinned and helpless, and so wildly afraid it was like a fever-shivering, and an awe beyond anything he’d known.

It stared down at him for a time. He could not have said how long. Every heartbeat an eternity. Then blinked once, breaking its own spell, and turned away. It sniffed at the air and braced itself, and leapt up, as though to climb the hillside once more. And suddenly in mid-air, it shimmered and burst out glowing with a brilliant inner light that became dazzles and sparks, that danced away back into the shadows; and was gone.

Cassian let out a long breath, though he’d been unaware of holding it till then. A shudder ran through him despite the humid air, and he wrapped his arms across his breast and hugged himself close, for the reassurance it gave, to touch his own sweaty skin, and feel his heart drubbing like a war drum still. A faint moan escaped him, and he had to fight back the urge to tell himself out loud that he was alive and unharmed.

Alive and unharmed, and hungry, and once again, alone.

He picked himself up clumsily when at last the pounding of his heartbeat had quietened, and looked around once more at the river, at the stony spit and the crowded leafy banks above. Huge golden-red butterflies were clustering on the shingle a little further off, drinking at the water’s edge, and tiny birds no bigger than his palm darted down to settle beside them and sip, and flutter away. Nothing, except him, seemed to have been disturbed in the slightest by the creature of stars and hot breath that had guided him there. The oselotl.

_Oselotl_? What kind of word was that? He’d had no notion what to call the cat, just minutes ago, except _giant_ and _beast_ , and perhaps _monster_. Though it was no more truly monstrous than an ocean or a mountain, for all the terror it had struck in his limbs.

The word drifted into being, out of the same faint realm of memory, deep within him where the heat and the scent in the air had dwelled all these years. He knew that creature. He knew this forest, and these waters, and the living things all around him, clustering and creeping, flying and swarming and feeding on one another.

He wondered whether he should try walking through the river; it would disguise his scent, if there were any other animals around here with the teeth of a predator, and less starry, more earthly, in their nature. But when he tilted his head, the sound of running water was louder and wilder downstream and he suspected rapids lay that way, or at least rocks under the surface. If he fell or injured himself, he could drown, and no-one would be the wiser.

Perhaps this was the place he had once lived in, had known as a child and run through freely; but he did not want to die there, just the same.

He turned back, and got a grip on the trunk of a sapling growing out of the bank, and hauled himself up, away from the water.

At once he saw it; there where he’d come crashing down, desperate to reach the river, he’d crossed a place where the ground was beaten flat, and bare; narrow but true, a pathway ran along the river bank, screened by foliage, invisible until you stood right upon it. 

The oselotl had leapt that way, just before it vanished back into stars.

It was too straight, too clear, to be an animal track; and as he looked to right and left, he saw other tell-tale signs. Here and there were twigs and vines, not snapped or bent back, but cut cleanly. Shallow prints in the soil, where human feet had pressed into mud, days or weeks ago.

_Where there’s a trackway, and footprints, there are people. Where there are people, there will be food, and shelter. Perhaps someone who can prompt a memory of more than one word in me._

He did not know which way was the better; the forest stretched all around, seemingly endless, and apart from the voices of living creatures, and the song of the river, there was nothing else to guide him. Cassian tossed the options in his mind, left or right, downstream or up, and made a choice. He turned to his right, and followed the path upstream.


End file.
